Heading South

I haven't had anything much to write about today other than the invisible meteor shower (yes, I just checked, and it's raining), so I thought I'd write about another October morning, 25 years ago.

My husband and I are backpacking on Isle Royale, an island national park in Lake Superior.  To get there, we had to drive 16 hours and take a float plane, but we've discovered that an October trip is much better than an August one.  The influx of human visitors has almost entirely abated.  We see several moose every day, and we hear the wolves howling one night.  We hike along the Greenstone Ridge, the backbone of the island, and see autumn laid out in blazes of color below us.

It's early morning and it's really, really cold.  I crawl out of the tent, having reached the point of no return as far as needing to go to the bathroom, and clutch my down vest around my thermal top.  After I take care of business, I walk my stiff and frozen self the short distance to the water's edge.  The sun is rising over Lake Superior, its golden rays streaking through the clouds low over the horizon.  And the geese begin to rise as well -- hundreds and hundreds of Canada geese, stretched in long skeins  across the entire expanse of northern sky. 

The only sounds are the lapping of the waves against the shore and the melancholy honking of the geese, following the route set by countless generations before them.  It's really the only way to begin a day in late October.