Oooh-ahhh!

I’ve been remiss about feeding this blog. Too busy of late, perhaps.  Ideas I have – plenty of them.  It’s the time that’s been scarce.

Not right now, though.  I’m back at the lake.  My sister, Linda, and I arrived on separate airplanes at O’Hare in Chicago, then we took a quick flight on a slender jet to arrive in Traverse City.

Mary Ann, sister No. 2, will arrive by car in an hour or so.

We’re here to close on the sale of the cottage.  That happens Monday, day after tomorrow. Today and Sunday, the cottage is still ours – still in the family.  Sure, we’ll be leasing it from the new owners – the National Park Service – for a year.  But that’ll be a twinge different. For the next 48 hours, it’s still truly ours.

It was striking flying in to Traverse City.  It had been years since I had done it, and then in the green sweep of summer.  Today, though, the trees were painted red, bright yellow, purple and ever-green - nature’s quilt, gathered and bunched against the deep blue of Traverse Bay.

We grabbed lunch, then drove the 23 miles northwest to the cottage, which sits on the south side of Glen Lake, just below Inspiration Point.

Typically by now, we’ve sealed the cottage for the winter. The power would be off, the dock pulled on shore, the windows locked tight. 

But this year is different.  We knew we’d be here to close the sale, yes.  But we’ve all thought of ways to extend our love of the place by planning off-season visits.  Personally, I’ll be back with Cindy, Meghan, Zach and the dogs over Thanksgiving.

It’s cold here now.  Not nasty cold … instead, a pleasant mid 30s.  But the cottage’s bones were stiff when we arrived.  We quickly started a fire and turned up the heat.  Our wood supply was low, so after Linda visited the grocery, I drove up by Empire Airport high atop the hills overlooking Lake Michigan.  I had remembered a roadside wood stand. 

“$4 a bundle,” said the metal sign.  You slide your bills into a rusty money box.  I bought four stacks.  It’s good wood … seasoned, slow-burning.

Though the sun shines and the lake remains its deep, crystal blue, just as in summer, the flecks of orange, red and yellow in the surrounding hills speak volumes of the season.  (That, and the giant inflated Halloween spider stuck on the side of Melba Ann’s Bakery at the Narrows.)

October at the cottage is so beautiful.  Sad to say we’ve rarely seen it, content instead to spend mainly summers here.  But October is the transition month on the aft side of the year – when summer yields to fall, yielding to winter.  Nature uses these splendid colors to celebrate that fact … quiet, slow-shooting fireworks extending from trunk to tree top, rippling in kaleidoscopic waves across the hills.

Next month, when we return, the trees will be muted, the temperatures frigid.  Perhaps there will be snow.  Animals will be fewer.

Then, we’ll rely more on the fire in the fireplace to brighten our souls. 

Today, though, we just need to look out the window and marvel at Nature’s pyrotechnics.

And say, “oooh … aaahh!”