Destination, no deadlines

We pull out of the driveway about 2 PM, loaded with food for two weeks, piles of books and magazines, file boxes to be tackled in solitude. We have no deadline but we have a destination.

Michiganders speak of going “up north.” As far as I can tell, up north means anything north of Flint. I-75 is the primary corridor but there are other routes as well. We follow the expressway until we hit the Thumb area when we turn off and head north on smaller roads.

Stopping for a meal before we exit the highway we are greeted by a wait staff looking for customers. “Pretty slow today,” our waitress says. “Not many people going north this time of year.” Exactly why we are here. This restaurant is packed to confusion on a warm day or at peak of snow machine season, but March Mondays are not high on the priority list for travelers. Mud month in the north is to be avoided, except for those seeking solitude.

The sugar beet fields in the Thumb sweep in total flatness to the horizon, sodden with snowmelt, rough and fallow. Moving further north we hit the forests and the road begins to undulate gently like a silver ribbon, straight to the north.

We stop at a gas station before the final ascent to the top of the Mitten. Sunset is approaching. “Are the deer in the road?” we ask the girl behind the counter. Behind us a teen answers, “No, they’re in the fields this time of year.” We’ve seen herds on this highway in winter snow storms but moving north, we pass field after field with a sprinkling of deer picking through last summer’s stalks.

The final stretch takes us through towns with Polish monikers, named by settlers who found this land strangely like what they had left behind. The wide spaces, sparsely treed, and relative flatness look like the central Europe the Prussians, Russians, and Germans chose for centuries as their preferred battlefield. Polish towns with Roman steeples, but the waterways carry the French names the Canadian voyageurs left in the 18th century – Au Gres, Au Sable, and our destination, Presque Isle.

As darkness begins to fall we reach the final road into the “almost island” of Presque Isle. By now snow banks line the roadways, last bastions of a cold and precipitous winter. We reach the gate to the shore community and punch in our code. The gate rumbles open and we enter. A mile down the road and to the right, we spot the drive into Cedar Cove.

The outside floodlights are on the pole barn and the house is in shadow. Just beyond, the lake shines in the glowing dark, rimed with ice and boulders. Keying our way into the garage, we turn on the water, open the house and find the heat. The car is quickly unloaded, food stowed, offices created upstairs and down where the huge glass walls look out onto the wide expanse of Huron, and nothing, absolutely nothing, else. The rig lights of a Laker heading south twinkle on the far horizon. I take off my watch and set it on the dresser.

There are clocks in the house but we’ve reached our destination: no deadlines.