I drive home from Minnesota, where I’ve been visiting an old friend, helping him on the house he’s building deep in the forest, two miles up an unmaintained track. We work on the roof, and every so often I pause to take in the view of Lake Superior. The shore is miles away, but the lake is vast in an oceanic way, the horizon line where water meets sky feels like the end of something too big to fathom. We move fast and accomplish much, and I leave satisfied, ready for the long ride home, straight across the middle of America, where grain grows right to the edges of interstate and big trucks accompany me through the night.
Back home the leaves are mostly down. The streams run low and quiet. The cows graze the last grass. Everything seems to hang in the balance, suspended between seasons, the gentle one that’s soon to pass, and the harder one that’s soon to come. I try not to think about it much. Today I’ll go outside, run some fence, help my son change over his summer tires for winters. There’s no snow in the forecast. But it’s good to be prepared.
Ben Hewitt 
Hi Ben…I was looking at the Atlantic from the eastern shore of Cape Cod the other day thinking similar thoughts about the vast expanse before me and how small I am in comparison.Tiny and insignificant is more like it. Yet this broad reach stretching out before me brings great peace as I stand there and I forget, for a brief time, the troubles that are behind my back.
Thanks for this post.
Love road trips. Glad you’re well. I pondered swapping out these balogna skins for tires I’ve got on the parts car. But where are we going? Not nowhere… But like you say, I should be prepared…
All my life I was told how ‘cold’ Lake Superior is, but the one time I swam in it, it was significantly warmer than the other Great Lakes. Sometimes you’re ‘prepared’ (or fearmongered over frickin’ water) and it’s not what you thought I guess:} I always wondered if the snow tire thing was really necessary… that or the idea of dealing with two sets of tires is like asking me to remember what they said in church…probably a good idea though (not the church part, the tire part!)
Ah, Lake Superior. I’ve only seen it from our Canadian side, but it really does command respect. Beautiful.