Road Trip

My wife was insistent. She was determined that we were going to take a road trip to view the colors. Complicating her Saturday desire was our 15 year old son. Jack was supposed to go with his church youth group on a paintball expedition, which meant that we had to drive him to and from town. But when Jack wandered home from a sleep over at a friend’s house, Jack did what teens often do: He changed his mind. Instead of firing balls of paint at other Lutheran kids, he chose to stay home.

“This is where Chris and I launched the canoes,” I said to Rene’ as we stood on the dock at the public landing on Indian Lake, the oranges and golds and greens of early autumn surrounding the crisp blue waters of the small ox bow off the Cloquet River.

My reference was to a trip my third son Chris and I made a decade ago. We put in our canoe at Indian Lake and paddled downstream, towards home, over the course of three nights and days. It was a great trip.

“Very pretty,” Rene’ said, looking out over the tiny teardrop of water. “Very pretty.”

After a quick pit stop at Hugo’s in Brimson, a local watering hole noted for its friendly atmosphere and constantly revolving ownership, I put the Pacifica in gear and headed east, towards Highway 2. The maples flamed. The birches and aspen waved golden fingers in the breeze. The tamaracks hinted color. And the white pines, the sentinels of the North Woods, stood green against the painted backdrop.

Highway 1 proved arduous. Minnesota’s fifth season, road construction season, was in full swing. Fifteen miles of detour took us to Babbitt, a mining town on the far eastern edge of the Vermilion Range, where we caught County 21 and headed north, towards our ultimate destination, Ely, Minnesota.

“There’s the sign for the resort,” I observed as the car rumbled over pavement.

I was directing my wife’s attention to a large sign that read: Timber Wolf Lodge.

“Susanne says that they’ve really cleaned up the place,” Rene’ replied, referencing my beloved aunt, my mom’s only sibling. Susanne and my mom grew up working the resort on Bear Island Lake built by my grandfather Jack and my grandmother Marie. Grandpa hired the strong backs and clever hands of Finnish carpenters to build the cabins, store, ice house, and other structures of the fish camp. That all of the original buildings still stand says something about the abilities of immigrant craftsmen.

The Pacifica slowed as we approached the Chocolate Moose in downtown Ely. I found a parking spot and we clambered from car to sidewalk, intent upon lunch. I had the BLT. Rene’ had a salad and a bacon and cheese Quesadilla. We ate our fill and paid the tab before going next door to Piragis to shop. Predictably, Rene’ found clothing and I bought a book. The same pattern was repeated at Mealy’s across the street. I kept eyeballing a new CD by Eliza Gilkyson as my wife studied beautiful Arts and Crafts furniture. I finally broke and bought the music.

“I couldn’t resist,” I told Rene’ as we headed towards the car.

“I can see that,” was my wife’s only comeback.

“They had five copies of Laman’s River at the bookstore,” I added as my wife left me on the street corner to search for a restroom, pointing to the Piragis sign above her head.

“Nice. Did you send an announcement?”

“Yup. But they must have bought them from my distributor,” I replied as Rene’ headed into the store. “They didn’t order from me.”

I like to visit bookstores whenever we’re out and about to see if they are stocking my books. The bookstore at Piragis didn’t disappoint me. They had copies of my latest book as well as my best selling historical novel, Suomalaiset, on their shelves.

Waiting for Rene’, I called our friends, Ron and Nancy McVean who were staying in their motor home at Bear Head State Park a few miles down the road. I reached Nancy and confirmed we’d be stopping by for a visit. Our plan was to have a brief chat and then have dinner in town before heading home. Didn’t work out quite that way.

Ron and I took a long walk around the bucolic and peaceful state campgrounds. We skirted the lakeshore and ended up standing on a fishing pier, doing what old friends do: shooting the breeze. Nancy and Ron were camping with the Kuntzs, the Chesneys, and Greg Kaneski, each family in its own motor home or trailer, making a last-of-the-season camping trip to Bear Head, a trip they’ve been making as a group for nearly a decade.

“You guys want to stay for supper?” Nancy asked when Ron and I finally wandered back. “Pork chops on the grill.”

I looked at Rene’. She looked at me.

“Sure.”

Nancy got on her cell phone and caught Greg Kaneski coming out of Mass at the Catholic church in downtown Ely.

“Mark and Rene’ are staying for dinner,” she told her longtime boss and friend. “I need you to pick up two more pork chops.”

There ensued, shortly after Nancy got off the phone, an intense discussion between Ron and me about the proper methods of campfire building. Ron is a sort of “pile it all on guy”, believing that leaving too much space between dry logs invites sputtering inefficiency. I, being an Eagle Scout, like a smartly stacked, evenly spaced column of dry wood which allows air to foster combustion.

“You’ve got too much open space, too much air between the logs,” Ron critiqued as I built the campfire pyre in the steel fire pit. “It’ll never burn.”

I ignored Ron.

“Never gonna burn.”

Someone, I think Nancy, noted that there was a wisp of smoke rising from the fire pit. I hadn’t put match to birch bark so there shouldn’t have been any heat or smoke coming from my masterpiece.

“Must be hot coals left over, ” I noted, getting down on my hands and knees to blow.

“Never gonna start that way,” Ron advised, producing a blowtorch, his weapon of choice for starting gas grills, campfires, or anything else needing a helping hand.

Much like the proverbial little engine, I huffed and I puffed. I placed a slender piece of bark on the glowing coal and blew and blew but I couldn’t create flame. Picking up a handful of dry maple leaves (we’ve had no rain for weeks and the forest is as dry as a bone), I touched an edge of the red leaf to a glowing coal. A  fragile flame appeared. I blew to encourage heat.

“You’re getting ashes all over yourself,” Rene’ advised.

“And all over my picnic table,” Nancy noted.

On the verge of vindication, Ron added a piece of dry birch bark to the flame.

“I suppose you’re gonna claim you helped start this fire,” I said as I stood up.

“You’ve got an uneven flame,” Ron noted, touching his blow torch to pieces of bark strategically placed under the pyre. Soon, the entire stack of wood was crackling.

“You’re gonna claim ownership after I knelt on the dirt and blew and blew and blew, aren’t you?”

Ron made no reply.

We ate a fine meal and talked until after dark while the fire danced. Stars came out and our fifteen year old son called and wondered where his parents were.

 

Peace.

Mark