Gros Cap Windmills at Night with Firefly on the Beach

As the few remaining days tick by, preparations for our imminent departure are well underway. We’ll be traveling for only a few weeks, which by past year standards in not all that much, but this year is not one of those years. This will be our first trip since everything changed and as such, I would like to do it as safely as possible. We will be driving to Anne’s family cabin on the shores of Lake Superior. We’ll drive up there all in one day, which is a very long day, but one that we have done before. We have the new car, which has satellite radio to keep us going. We’ll make only minimal stops. Stopping only for gas and to use the bathroom. Once there, we’ll pretty much stick to our cabin in the woods and not venture out much, at least like we have done in the past. 

My biggest concern is food and have been planning our menu for weeks now. With luck, we will bring the right amount, not too much or too little. I’ve started packing clothes too, but Anne is still consumed with her latest project. It started out as a memory quilt for her mother, but with her passing, it has morphed into a remembrance quilt. One side of the quilt is the family’s tartan, while the other side is composed of about a hundred photographs of family members, both past and present. As these things go, it has been quite the undertaking, but it looks like she will finish it in plenty of time. Not that that matters much, because she is planning on bringing it with her, along with her sewing machine.

It will be nice to get out of Sweat Louis for a while. We had one day this week when the weather wasn’t so awful darn hot. A cold front had come through, lowering both the heat and the humidity. When we walked that morning it was so pleasant. Most mornings our four mile hike eventually turns into a Bataan death march by the end. Even a Camelbak full of ice water can only partially ward off the hot weather. Each day, I am reminded why since I retired, we spend as little time in town during the summer as possible, but not this summer.

One thing that I am looking forward to seeing this summer is the new comet Neowise. Up until now, the comet has only been visible in the morning sky. Meaning getting out before dawn, which I have tried, but without much effort and with even less success. This coming week though, since Neowise has already swung around the sun and is now heading back out to the Oort cloud, from which it came. About the time that we will be arriving in Michigan, the comet will switch from being a morning star and become an evening star, where all the hundreds of sunset pictures that I’ve taken over the years come from. I hope to get a photograph of it while I’m there.