There is a strange intimacy that comes from going on a road trip with another person. No, not the type of intimacy that lovers have, but an inimitable closeness born from two people cooped up together for hours upon end in a metal cocoon on wheels, whirring toward a destination. There is an unexpected familiarity created between two people that comes from breathing the same air, smelling the same scents, and experiencing mundane oddities like a raccoon carcass in the road, or a lonely stop sign marking the specter of a long-deceased town, as the black ribbon stretching out in front of the car beckons you onward. As the miles steadily mount up on the odometer, conversely, polite society constructs fall away like leaves from a tree in mid-October, and this is when the true test of a friendship amongst fellow sojourners is stressed. The grittiness of boredom and monotony begins to chafe both humor and patience within the self-imposed confines. Yet, after months of lockdowns and limited movement in response to a worldwide plague, my rugged buddy Jack and I, enthusiastically embraced the mind-numbing hours on the road as we struck out on our adventure. Our souls thirsted for liberation from the rules and regulations we had been living under, where mandated masks erased our uniqueness and social distancing stripped us of connection. Hurriedly, as if we were fugitives from the law, we chucked our belongings into his vehicle with little planning and even less organization, and headed north to escape the stifling atmosphere of dread and fear that had seeped into every aspect of our lives for months.   

After two days in the passenger seat of Jack’s car, I had become something of a car passenger expert. I had figured out how to do just about anything from the passenger seat, all while the car sped along rural two-lane roads flanked alternately by corn fields or wooded copse. I stored my snacks in the most convenient location in the pocket of the door, my shoes were off and lined up in a neat row on the floorboard, my drink tucked between my thighs, and most importantly, my pee bottle under the seat for easy access. Sure, we could have probably stopped on the side of the road to relieve ourselves, but that would merely slow us down. When full bottles necessitated that we stop to empty them, we did so, but every stop meant another minute added to the hundreds already logged to get to where we were headed. We shaved every second we could off our travel time as we became increasingly eager to arrive at our destination: The Upper Peninsula. 

The Upper Peninsula is a heavily forested area in Michigan that borders three of the Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Huron, and Michigan. On a map, it looks like the Peninsula extends out eastward from Wisconsin, only to connect with the mitten-shaped Michigan by a nearly five-mile-long bridge called Mackinac Bridge. Looking at a Mercator projection of the U.S., which is the style of map you’ll find on google maps, it would appear that the Upper Peninsula would be better suited as a part of Wisconsin. You could say, it appears to be the bastard of the family of Wisconsin, related by blood, but shunned by polite society. Maybe Wisconsin knew how little was up there and wanted nothing to do with the harsh landscape. Or maybe to Michigan’s credit, only they could see just how beautiful the U.P., as it’s called by locals, really is. 

Jack and I were on our way up to the land of the Yoopers to spend our Fall break from school deep in the mysterious wilderness camping, unwinding, and getting back to our roots, so to speak. As the tires hummed along the asphalt, the windshield looked out at a cold, dreary and grey afternoon. The narrow and seemingly infinite stretches of two-lane highways we had taken to get there were grating away our patience. We had been on the road for nine hours, and there was no reprieve in sight from the road extending endlessly in front of us, like an infinite black ribbon leading us on a folly with no end. It reminded me a bit of a conundrum I was recounted once. It went like this, 

“If a runner is in a race, and he runs half the distance to the end, and then again, another half, and another half, and then another half, he would never cross the finish line. He would always have another half to go.” 

We felt like that runner. Finishing another half, which would be followed by another half, and another half, and so on until our youthful full heads of hair would eventually begin to thin and grey, as we drove on and on. I felt we were aging years per minute, obviously an exaggeration but when one is isolated within a metal box for hours, ones’ mind can begin to make leaps that aren’t lodged in reality. Of course, our psyches had been battered and bruised by months of isolation, so our tenuous grasp of normalcy and reality had long begun to slip from our grasp, much as a slippery bar of soap does from a wet hand. 

If I were an eagle flying way above where we were in the grey sky, the view would be breathtaking, I had no doubt. On the ground, however, it was just one long road, no other cars going away or towards us, and endless coniferous trees on either side, the Centurions of the wilderness. We were driving through the Hiawatha forest, which is about one million acres of dense woodlands filled with red and white pine trees and jackpine savannahs. From above, I could imagine the highway looking like God had taken a straight razor and etched a little path through the tightly packed, dark green pines. As I peered wearily through the bug-smudged glass of the windshield, I felt small and inconsequential. I could sense the sheer magnitude of the landscape around us, relative to my tiny self. The land was flat, like a calm day on the ocean. Flat and endless. It felt like we were stumbling across something untouched by man, even though contrarily we were flying along a smooth cement road. I could only dream of how the mountain men and pioneers of the past must have felt trudging their way through these lands on their westward journeys solely by the magnitude of their resolve. The feelings I experienced were whirling deep in my gut; it was almost vertigo-like. 

I am by no means an experienced outdoorsman. I grew up watching idols like Clint Eastwood in The Man with No Name Series, and Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson. As a child, I wanted desperately to be a cowboy or a mountain man when I got older. Nature had always seemed deeply personal to me, so spending my time within it was enticing. It was for me as easy to build a connection with the natural world almost as profound as any friendship. During my youth, I had spent my fair share of time outside fishing, shooting my bb gun and exploring, but girls and school eventually lured me away from the solitude of nature. During my high school years, the time I spent outside was confined to grinding joyless hours on the football field or baseball diamond. When I went to college, I was even further removed from the solace of nature, as I spent my time in LED lit classrooms and airless tiny dorms. Adulthood had stealthily wrapped its tentacles around my soul; slowly choking out my childhood fantasies and dreams, leaving a sensible responsible man where once was a fanciful boy. Still shimmering faintly on the horizon of my soul remained the dreams of my inner child, not yet fully extinguished by maturity. Still, during the unshackled nocturnal musings of my soul, I felt that subtle pull from the wilderness. Not willing to cede my youthful soul quite yet, nature snagged at my clothes when I would walk by, and I would often dream of far off, remote destinations hidden within the canopies of pines, and in the shadows of mountains.  

I had longed for the true America, but within this impenetrable, and heavy-set forest, the very essence of my longing, I felt disappointed. I felt like the worst kind of fraud, the kind who had not only convinced other people of his untruths, but himself as well. 

Finally seeing the town of Munising dotted against the greying sky in the distance was like seeing an oasis flickering in a desert. Our desert was not the desolate dunes of the Sahara though, rather it was a desert of boredom, loneliness, and ultimately, impatience. We were ready to be somewhere. Munising is almost smack-dab half-way between our campsite and the biggest city in the U.P., Marquette, a city of about 21,000. Munising, on the other hand, which is the 17th biggest city in the U.P. is a town of about 2,000. The town is situated on the very tip of a small bay aptly called Munising Bay. The locals capitalize on the rural experience within which they exist by offering travelers, such as ourselves, cruise tours of Lake Superior, so city dwellers can enjoy a brief respite from their soulless existence in concrete communities big and small, far and near. The name for the city comes from the Ojibwe word minisiing, meaning “at the island”, due to the city being directly south of a midsize 13,000-acre island of woodlands called Grand Island. It is a popular tourist location that instantly ignited my dormant youthful exuberance for nature, as if someone had dosed winking embers with a stream of gasoline. The tall hills we were entrenched between were dabbled with reds and oranges and yellows. The immense beauty of the surrounding area would leave even the hardiest of men, and most experienced of travelers with mouths agape. 

We turned onto a worn, yet desolate winding three-lane road, that meandered through the town and then west. The air that greeted us quickly went from crisp to frigid, as the car heater struggled to keep the bottom portion of the car warm enough for my sock shorn feet. The patches of savannahs eventually drew thicker and thicker as we approached Munising, which as the crow flies, was about 10 miles away from where we were on the road. The sparse patches of dark green pine trees interspersed with savannahs made a subtle shift into an army of orange-hued ash trees, cherry red-draped mountain maples, and bright blond birch trees. 

 I turned from looking out of the window to Jack. “Let’s stop and grab some food before we head up to the site.”.  

“Good plan” he murmured, his bleary eyes glued to the road. 

We didn’t have to consider many options when finding somewhere to have our late lunch. The only spots that served food were a burger joint called Eh! Burger and Falling Rocks Cafe & Book Store. That was it. The quick meal would have to do to sustain us for the next hour until we arrived at our campsite. We grabbed some strong coffee from the Café, and loaded back into Jack’s bluish-grey Subaru crosstrek. The caffeine bolstered our energy and enthusiasm as we settled back into the all-too-familiar car seats. Munising shrunk away in our rear view mirrors, as we sipped our coffee and inched ever closer to our temporary home for the next two nights.

The way into our campsite felt more like an obstacle course than a road it was so scattered with bumps and turns. Recently fallen birch trees had been moved off of the road, haphazardly discarded mere inches from the holey dirt path. I wondered if beavers had been the culprits after seeing the narrowed ends and pointy stumps. We parked our car, and began unloading the essentials we had brought, which in all honesty, wasn’t that much. We had neglected to pack even sleeping bags and a tent in our frenzied departure from campus. Our one concession to wasting time during our journey was a rushed stop a few hours into our drive at a local sporting goods store and a grocery store where we hurriedly bought sleeping bags, a tent, as well as some bagels and peanut butter. Twenty minutes total had been the grand sum of stop to purchase necessities, which meant our only meals for the upcoming days and nights would be simple, basic and bland in the form of plain bagels and store brand crunchy peanut butter. 

“Help me set up this tent!” Jack grunted as he tried to stuff one of the poles into the ground. 

I set my water jug and peanut butter down, “Alrighty, hold on”. 

Setting up our brand spankin’ new north face tent was a bit like wrestling with a greased hog. The ground was so loose and sandy that the poles wouldn’t stay put. Not only that, but the clips dedicated to holding the actual tent portion to the aforementioned poles slipped and fell off as soon as you got the adjacent one settled. The rain fly was the worst part. It fit onto the tent like a poorly knitted sweater you get from granny on Christmas. Too short in front, the top was tighter than it should be and the bottom; well, it was so loose a raccoon could have slipped inside and set up a cozy home. Only upon “completion” of the tent, if you could call that what we had done, did we realize a crucial mistake. It was a one-person tent. Jack and I would be cozy that night. Whatever bro-hood intimacy we had formed during the drive was about to exponentially increase.

Jack had way more experience than I did outdoors. In many ways, I wished I was like Jack. He knew things about the wilderness that never crossed my mind. Every once in a while, he would drop some kind of fact that I would of course squirrel away in my mind for later regurgitation like, “Did you know that if you spend long enough in the woods, your body will associate you digging a hole with pooping, so your body makes you have to ‘go’ anytime you dig a hole?” I wasn’t sure I would need this information, since the John was only a few hundred feet away, but I retained this all the same. 

Darkness was rapidly descending onto us, and snow began to float down from above as if it were our welcoming committee. With our home base finally established, and a small fire smoldering, Jack and I chatted, finally relaxing enough to share our thoughts. 

“I can’t believe how gorgeous this place is,” I said as I gestured around to the tall, thin pine trees that loomed over us.

Jack leaned forward, and stoked the fire, “I know, man. This place reminds me so much of home, but it just feels so different.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

He rubbed his rough stubble and tightened his lips. “I don’t know. Like, I feel like there should be mountains around like back in Colorado, but everything is so flat. It’s just so remote around here.” 

He was right. It was remote. We were camping right on the shoreline of Lake Superior, our solitude diluted by a few families in campers scattered among the dense forest and dotted along the sandy beaches. While it felt like we were hours away from civilization, the closest town, Grand Marais with about 300 residents, was actually only thirty minutes away down tiny two-lane road. To our north was an expanse of about 130 straight miles of bone-chilling, choppy water before you reach Canada and to the south was fifty miles of forest-land. Despite being welcoming, our isolation from other humans was self-imposed, and out of habit; I looked at my phone. To my surprise, I realized I didn’t even have cell service. In a world of constant connection, I was cut off. Yet, not entirely. Jack’s 4-wheel drive car sat a mere yard from me. The dozen or so campers sat all along the access road that led us to our camping spot were another reminder that we weren’t really as remote as it seemed. An eerie ache snaked its way into my throat. A lump formed that I couldn’t swallow. I feared that the America I had dreamed of did not exist anymore. I so desperately wanted this to be my own secret beauty. I wished I were experiencing all of the infinite beauty of the Great Lakes without the company of families who had come from far and wide to experience it also. 

The inky darkness had blanketed everything, and the fire burned out as Jack and I sipped our beers and toasted our bagels over the open flame for dinner. One by one all the families turned in for bed. We ate, and then spurred by experience I lacked, Jack stood up first. He and his cuffed pants and floppy hair retreated to the tent for the night, and I was quick to follow. It was about to get cold as hell.

As we wedged our two bodies into an expanse made for a solitary person, I pondered about how we had not done much in the way of planning for this trip. We had figured we would “figure it out” when we arrived, and it was becoming increasingly clear that a bit more planning would have been wise. As dawn offered a frigid greeting a few hours later, I shivered myself awake and rolled out of the tent into the nippy morning air. Our lack of planning was suddenly a brutal reality when rather than being dreamy-eyed and anticipatory of all the exciting things we would do outside in this natural wonderland, I was dreary eyed and all I could think about was my desire, nay my need, for a strong cup of coffee after a cold, uncomfortable night. Our exploration would have to wait, as we grumpily settled our butts back into the seats of Jack’s car for a 45-minute drive to Munising for a cup of Joe. I could only imagine how disappointed Daniel Boone would have been in us for our pansy-ass ways. Finally, our caffeine needs met, we commenced upon our plans for our maiden day in nature. As we traced our way back the road we had come down, Jack peered intently at the green road signs that were scattered along the way. His eyes lit up as he clearly saw what he had been looking for. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. He turned onto the rutted dirt road and we made our way towards the trail head. 

Pictured Rocks is a small park with about 100 miles worth of trails that lead all over the northern hardwood forest. One particular trail was of interest to Jack however. It was a six-mile round hike; it went down along the side of Beaver Lake, which was more of a pond in comparison to the larger body of water just north of it, and then looped around to the shoreline of Superior. The trail on the way down winded and bent through the dense trees, rarely giving us room enough to breathe. The path was muddied and covered in water in parts, which made it difficult to share the trail with the many hikers we passed along the way. There are 100 miles of trails, and it seemed like we were running into everyone, including their mothers on this particular day. As we pushed onward, I wished I could get a moment by myself to appreciate the collage of fall colors, densely weaved pine trees, and brooks crisscrossing the landscape. It was tough to admire the view while hearing conversations like:

“Oh, we should try that diner we passed on the way here after this.”

“No, we can’t. It was closed for the season because of Covid.”

“Darn. Oh, look at that!”

And the clicking of camera-phones documenting every leaf and mossy rock. 

I followed closely behind Jack, confident in his ability to lead us to where he wanted us to end up. Following the well-traveled trail, we made our way down towards the lakeshore. There is a famous rock formation near where the trail loops back around called Chapel Rock. It is a large pillar of sandstone with an ancient looking tree atop, but it was also home to the dozens of tourists all huddled to take pictures of the famous structure. We stopped for a moment to inspect the rock and tree, took it in, and then went on our way passed the other hikers. Eventually we found our way down to the beach. Nobody else was down there; it finally felt like I had the solitude I craved. The entire hike down there was an oddly claustrophobic ordeal, which is strange considering where we were. It felt like we had been surrounded by bigger crowds than we had seen in months while living amongst hundreds of people. The combination of people, and thick brush made it difficult to get a breath out, let alone a thought. Again, I was disappointed in something. I didn’t know if it was the landscape, or myself. Surely, it couldn’t be the white-caped waves before me, or the deep jungle-like hardwood forest behind. How could a marvel like this disappoint me? 

I looked at Jack, his shaggy hair shaking in the sharp cold wind. “I wish this place wasn’t so busy.”

He stuffed his hands in his pocket. “Yeah, it seems like a popular spot. It’s still pretty though. Hard to believe we are where we are.” 

His eyes looked out over the small sandstone ledge we were on, 5 feet below us was the beach, and 10 yards in front of us was the deepest of the Great Lakes, Superior. A few more groups of hikers had followed our lead and stood in small clusters around us. We dug into our bags, pulled out a beer and a bagel, and tried to enjoy the view, however noisy or trafficked it may be. 

On our way back up, the space between trees began to widen, it was almost like an expanding field of view. Suddenly, the elusive feeling I had been grasping at yet failing to secure flooded my brain; it felt like we were truly alone. You could see through the Maples and Ashes for hundreds of feet, and the openings left room for my mind to wander. The trail was longer crowded by aggressive foliage, intruding on your path at every step. No, this felt wide, vast and welcoming. The wide slits of orange background between the trees looked like someone had dropped a hazy curtain off in the distance. This curtain was acting as a canvas for my mind to paint any number of things.  The trees stood at attention, tall and strong and with about 20 feet between each of them. It wasn’t hard to find their fallen comrades though. Scattered through the scene were huge trees split at the base or near the middle of the trunk. It was hard to imagine what powerful force could have toppled them with such apparent ease, yet the power of the force was palpable if invisible to my eyes. It seemed as though we were in the wake of a giant, who had lumbered his way through this valley, maybe to get a cold drink from the fresh water of Lake Superior, snapping the trunks without remorse. In a way, I guess we were. 

If you could look back about 200,000 years ago, where we were standing would have been crushed by a giant. A smattering of classes in geology and history during my education had informed my youthful self that above us there had once been a 3,000 feet thick glacier that had molded this land, like an artist of immense power and talent making a sculpture out of rock and clay. This time was called the Wisconsin Glacial Episode. During this epoch, any number of exotic species would have roamed the ground far above where we were. Dark brown, shaggy-haired Woolly mammoths, stocky bison, giant ground-sloths, muscle-rippled sabre-tooth felines, and even gristly early humans might have stalked the tundra. 

Over the next 100,000 years later, the Laurentide ice sheet, as it’s known, began to melt and retreat northward leaving in its wake giant gouges in the land that would become what we know as the Great Lakes. The undulations left behind by the massive sheaths of ice consisted of giant basins which would fill with the icy cold water of the Great Lakes that Jack and I braved a short bone-numbing dip into one night, but also the higher portions left unscathed to poke above the murky water as the islands that dot the lakes. As the glaciers receded to the north, the earth had sprung back from the immense weight of the ice. As it did so unevenly, the subsequent lakes established their unique identities of varying depth and breadth, creating a vast liquid staircase of sorts stepping down to the Atlantic Ocean. 

Back in the present day, I was among the trees that have replaced the glacier. Each rustle of the leaves, each scampering chipmunk, each fallen tree seeped into my soul, recharging my very essence. As we tromped our back to the trailhead, a feeling of nostalgia crept into my brain. I wasn’t sure why, as I had never seen someplace even similar to this before. Yet, somewhere deep inside me, I felt a sense of familiarity with my surroundings, as if I had been here before, maybe not in person, but in my imagination. The sun shone down through the thick oranges and reds giving the entire forest an autumnal hue. The sun had marched higher into the sky, just as we had marched through the woods, warming the air around us. We stopped briefly to shed our jackets, stuffing them haphazardly into our backpacks. I took the moment to look around, and inhale deeply, breathing in the energy ebbing around us. It was magical. It looked like how the small tree-lines behind my house felt as a child, where in my youthful mind, those trees were a vast forest, rather than a few dozen trees clustered together. The possibilities seemed endless, and my imagination was free to dance, and play like I did as a boy. 

“Let’s keep moving,” Jack hollered, now about 30 feet from where I was. 

It was a rude awakening from my dreamy state, but the few moments where I felt like I had this spot to myself seemed more like a lifetime. Physics was not my strong suit, again that was Jack’s wheelhouse, but instantly I felt an understanding of how vast amounts of time could be compacted into a second; I had just experienced it in my mind. I shrugged off the idyllic musings, and hurried to catch up with my friend. The forest grew thicker again and then eventually opened up into the great expanse that was the parking lot. We waded back into the slapdash clutter of suburban families, and family campers.