Me sitting on a small boulder in the middle of a low gently flowing river whittling away.
I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7. That is my fondest childhood memory. Something simple, peaceful and out in nature. I am my best person when I am outside. So how at this point in my life am I still in a job I don’t love or really like and I live in a house that isn’t mine?
My smart, beautiful, amazing and loving momma passed away on February 2 of this year. She passed with her husband and children all around her, loving her. No matter how surrounded by love my momma was at the end…it still sucks. I can barely type these words because they still seem so unreal.
I was fortunate enough to have my momma Gina for almost 44 years. Life is now totally messed up.
I don’t know how to move forward. My dad is lost. I am lost. I am ready to move out of my parents house. It’s been almost 6 months since she has passed. My mom would say to move out and move forward. My dad on the other hand wants me to stay. I worry about him being alone. Is six months long enough to leave a grieving parent after the other one passes? My siblings say to move out as I need privacy and dad needs to get used to life with out someone in the house all the time. But they are not here at all hours of the day seeing the look of confusion and loss on his face. It is heartbreaking.
For my own good I need to move on from this house. I look in the mirror and do not even recognize myself.
I miss the outdoors. I don’t go hiking much these days. I have been backpacking once since February and was so grossly out of shape that it was embarrassing.
I have to find my way back to my passions. I am bushwhacking through life right now. I have all the gear to forge a path but no motivation to do it. The grief/depression has a grip that I cannot wrestle myself from underneath. Maybe it will leave me when I leave this house.
I need a home that is mine. A place to work on, cultivate and make a home.
This is my dad’s home and my mom is still here. I love that she is still here.
I miss my mother.
~Lori
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Duuuuuuuuuudes….. I am totally at an impasse! I have been wracking my brain for the past several weeks about what to do come June 19. I have this cozy, sometimes air conditioned, sometimes not air conditioned, Airbnb until then. What comes next is either buy the van which will take 12-16 weeks for the factory to build because of certain things I want, or rent a place for a year to give myself some much needed stability and structure.
See this past year and half was wonderfully stressful. Make sense? Yeah, probably not so let me explain. lol…
On the evening of December 31, 2018 I was having fun with friends at Sky Bridge Station down in the Red River Gorge in Kentucky when I received a phone call from my dad that started out, “Don’t rush home but I had to take your mom to the E.R. tonight.” What?!?!?! So I of course rush home the next morning. What turned out to be bronchitis quickly turned to pneumonia and then almost 4 months of hospitalizations, cardiac rehab and back to the hospital and then back again to cardiac rehab. My momma is doing fine now but it was a long road when she finally did make it home and then it was months of in home care. I stayed with them to help out which was my pleasure for two reasons. 1. I had foot surgery that February so they let me convalesce there and 2. They are my parents and there isn’t anything I would not do for them.
So my mom gets to a point where she is healing up pretty well so I decided to take a big ol’ trip out west for three weeks. Upon return my dad, yet again the bearer of great news, tells me that he didn’t want to tell me while I was on the road but he has to have a heart catheterization literally the day after I get home. Turns out my dad needed triple bypass surgery! Duuuude…really?!?!?! So he asks me to stay and I of course said yes because I am the only one out of their four children that sent my mom into labor, they wiped my butt, put up with my oh so pleasant teenage boy crazy attitude and I pretty much blew out the 4×4 on their Ford Bronco (the massive one where I could barely see over the dash board) because I was in a hurry. I was sixteen years old, my boyfriend was coming home from college and I couldn’t wait to leave my lifeguard post for the day. When I hopped in the Bronco at the end of my shift and threw it into drive I crashed because I didn’t see the cement light post (sans light post) in front of the hood I could barely see over. Soooooo I figured I owed them ANOTHER round of daily in home care taking.
And for the record it was NOT just me taking care of my parents. My siblings and I pulled together like soldiers to make sure that everything and I mean everything was taken care of.
My sister Lisa is an ICU nurse and kept everyone abreast of what was going on in calm yet “let’s cut out the bullshit” way of a nurse she is. I am sure she is nicer at explaining things to her patients than she is to her family. But she was literally the cats a$$ and that is why I made her my Healthcare POA. Plus I know she wouldn’t pull the plug on me too early nor too late. ;D
My sister Lana was the comic relief. No one can do a slutty Russian accent better than her and she continuously boosted our spirits with her humor and need to keep the peace attitude. Plus she is a pretty decent baker so that came in handy!
Our brother Donnie (the oldest) and most likely to have a plaque on his desk that says, “I’m kind of a big deal”, talked to every doctor, nurse, social worker and beyond. He seems to have endless connections because, he was kind of a big deal, at a hospital where he once worked. Although his three sisters do keep his ego in check. 🙂 So he made sure that our parents received the absolute best care where they were being treated.
Now we are back. It is now mid January, my mom is doing better and my dad recovered in the utmost text book way. Three cheers for them and their not wanting to kick the bucket before I get married! No I am not getting married but hopefully I’ll meet the man of my dreams and they’ll be around hanging on beyond their time when I do get married! Probably screaming Holy crap it’s about time!!! Hahaha…
Along comes February and I am looking for a van. I will stay with my folks the few months it’ll take to build out and then be on my merry way!
Then COVID-19 strikes and sends everything into chaos. Next thing I know I have to quarantine myself from my parents because I work in an ICU that was housing COVID patients. Now the van is a distant memory for the foreseeable future.
This all leads me to where I am now, sitting in this rented Airbnb typing away trying to figure out what to do next while sweating my butt off.
Do I buy a van and hope COVID doesn’t have a massive resurgence with everything reopening or get a nice place for a year to regroup, breathe, get in better shape, don’t be stressed and sleep like an effing rock!?
To be continued…
~L
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Light is shining through the front windows casting slatted shadows on the hardwood floor. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgeralds’ voices are filling the air of this cute space I rented for a short time. Frida Kahlo is staring at me with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She is probably wondering what I am going to do with the next five days off, praying I am not just another boring guest in this home. I filled the front of the house with bushy beautiful bouquets of flowers to make this place feel a little more soft and homey while I am here. Momma Earth is coming out of hibernation and her gift of a renewed earth every spring is the loveliest time of the year.
I am sitting at the bottom of a hill that is filled with so much history. Normally the streets are filled with people darting in and out of shops and cafes. But during this pandemic most are holed up in their homes making the best of it and hopefully becoming inspired by free time and imagination.
Morning Poem by Mary Oliver
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches –
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries in it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead –
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging –
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted –
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
~Much love and health,
Lori
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
I was just introduced to this poet. Now I’m not much into poetry but this gal was truly a luscious flower in the field. Mary Oliver I wish I would have been introduced to you sooner ✌🏻🌱🌎
~L
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
I never thought I’d find a spiritual guru, well I never thought I needed one man. But several years ago I found myself in a life crisis. I was stuck between a breakup and a geographical WTH moment! I’ve written about that before so I won’t go into details of that but you can find the posts here –> Hello God? Part one and here–> Hello God?? Part two
Deepak Chopra has a book called the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. One of the laws is the Law of Detachment. It states: “…that in order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn’t mean you give up the intention, and you don’t give up the desire. You give up your attachment to the result.”
I’m telling you guys that this law is the bomb diggity of all the laws! It is the most liberating feeling to be able to put this law into effect!
Deepak Chopra also goes on to say that “attachment is based on fear and insecurity and the need for security is based on not knowing the true Self.”
Um..word to your momma on that one! I was unknowingly adrift in a ocean trying to find myself. But the crazy part was that I thought I knew myself inside and out. Looking back I realize that who I thought I knew was really the perception of what everyone else thought of me and expected me to be.
That’s some crazy shiznit! I learned to detach myself spiritually from everyone else’s thoughts, feelings, expectations, desires and most of all emotions that I LET negatively affect me. I learned that the outcome was not what I should be concerned with. My intentions could remain true while letting go.
I say to people that ya gotta let it go and let it flow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect when it comes to practicing this all the time but I have to say that I am not the same emotionally reactive person I was five or six years ago. All we have is this moment and then it’s gone, not to resurface again. What happens if you dwell on something that you have no control over?
But first let’s ask ourselves what we actually do have control over. I have control over how I choose to respond and what I choose to let take hold of me.
So maybe someone says to me, “Hey Lori! Uh.. looks like you enjoyed a few too many holiday cookies.” I could respond with snarky disdain or I could be be like, “But darn they were tasty!” Or maybe I could (and should) just let it go and say nothing at all because their words are looking for a response and their words speak of the hurt they are feeling somewhere and they decided to direct it towards me. I know my true self and choose to let the remark go and let it flow AND my intention for this person could be positive and I don’t have to let go of said positive intention but I do need to let go of what I think they’ll say the next time we meet.
In practicing the Law of Detachment I have found more and more security and comfort. Being secure in the unknown gives me a sense of peace. I don’t have to wonder, analyze, worry or try to figure out the unknown because I am completely comfortable in not knowing.
The Law of Detachment also helps me mind my own business. One can wax poetic philosophies all day but in the end I don’t feel the need to impose my beliefs on anyone. Not to say that listening and learning is bad but I won’t thump my views until I get a follower/believer.
I used to like to be involved in people’s problems. I’d be like, “I can help! I’m a nurturer, fixer and a warm loving blanket to wrap around you. Ask me to help you! Let me be the one to listen! Let me be the one you go to!!!!” Ugh… that was freakin exhausting! I LET people suck my energy because I wanted to be the emotional martyr! Why? Because I was insecure and wanted to be needed.
I no longer trespass on people. (Although sometimes if I’ve had a little too much to drink the old me comes out and I despise my poor decisions in the morning.). I say that my give a s@#% factor is zero and I don’t say that to be mean, not at all. But, unless someone seeks me out then my give s@#% is zero because it’s based on not knowing and quite frankly the less I’m know sometimes the better off I am. Also I say it because other people’s opinions of me are none of my business and I don’t give a s@#%. I know my truth. I know I am a good person and I live a mostly good life.
The Law of Detachment also helps me detach from my ego. And my ego needs regular detaching. Lol…
~L
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Lunacy man, gosh darn lunacy. The sky is various shades of blue, the grass various shades of green and my life is various shades of gray. Well my favorite color is green but that doesn’t seem to get my point across. Oh wait dude, how about my life is like the time of day when the night sky fades into the sunrise and there are sooooo many colors. 😀 Blues, purples, pinks, reds, oranges, white (<— the stars or morning clouds) and yes there is gray and you don’t know which ones to look at first or for how long. For the love of all things people this analogy is perfect! Ooorrrr maybe my life is like a Jackson Pollock painting, colorful, messy, not remotely as pretty as the analogy above and you don’t know what the heck is going on. Um…I am going for the night fading into day scenario.
“Wyyyyyyyattt!”, I call out to him the morning as we are leaving for our big cross-country camping/backpacking extravaganza of a road trip. “Are we absolutely sure that we packed all of our stuff?!” “Duuude”, he yells back. “I know dude but I am just stupid excited and I am just trying to save us time and money by not having to purchase a bunch of stuff once we get to our first destination. Whereeeever that may be.” I cannot stop smiling as I drink my coffee and prance around the house in last minute excitement! We have been dreaming of this road trip for so long and it has finally come to fruition! A couple years of planning and trying to get the same amount vacation time, a month, from each of our jobs have made this a difficult but a fun time of planning. I use the term planning very loosely. Basically we decided to go on this adventure without a specific destination in mind but we did put a lot of time and thought into what gear we’d want to bring.
The second paragraph is what I imagine in my head. That one day I will be at that point with an amazing man and an amazing cross-country vacation planned.
Until then my life is like the first paragraph and I will continue to plug away at a dream where I am currently driving solo.
Co-pilot wanted.
~L
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
Sitting in a bar solo while waiting to go see Free Solo. Being solo and doing things solo isn’t so bad. Good things come to those with patience 😉. Be confident and flow with life.
~L
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
This is the first adventure that I let myself go on in 11 months! That means I have been overly cranky because I’m normally used to being on some kind of road trip/camping/backpacking adventure about once a month. I was getting to be a not nice person and quite honestly I was starting to feel numb. In my previous blog post I wrote about how much my chi was blocked and about how my creativity had come to a standstill. So let me tell you dudes that I needed this trip! I needed this trip like I need air… so not even kidding!
Not even a bum foot could keep me from going! I suffered a foot injury in June and thought it would heal on its own and decided not to do anything about it. As Isle Royale was quickly approaching in September I chose to ignore it even more because I did not want to not go on this trip. So I went and I took vitamin I, a.k.a. ibuprofen, every single day… LOL! Nothing was going to stop me from road tripping, boating and backpacking!
The day finally came when I headed down to Columbus, Ohio to meet my cousins and spread out our gear and decide what we were and were not going to take. We left early the next morning and got about 45 minutes north of Columbus when we stopped for gas and my cousin realized that one of his brakes smelled really bad and might’ve been…smoking? So we called his wife and she met us halfway between where we were and their house to exchange cars. After we reloaded our gear into her Subaru we got back on the road and headed north!
Oh my stars… this crew 🤪!!!
I tend to take “adventure hiccups” in stride. After all I’m finally on the open road, we got about 15 hours to drive and really what is 45 minutes in the grand scheme of things? It’s nothing. Sometimes things happen and you just have to roll with the punches. Let it go let it flow and keep moving on. The “hiccup” didn’t set the tone for the trip, it’s just something that happened, it’s fixed, it’s over and we’re moving on.
So we’re driving up north leaving Ohio and going into Michigan and it’s beginning to feel real! I’ve been to the lower part of Michigan before and it’s beautiful, it really is. I mean their football team might be horrible…Go Bucks, but hey no state is perfect. Except Montana. 😋. As we headed out of the lower part of Michigan into the Upper Peninsula that’s when the excitement really started to kick in! We crossed over the Mackinac Bridge and were officially in the UP! Whoop whoop! Dudes, the UP is vast, quiet and has its own kind a beauty separate from lower Michigan. It’s different in the UP. You just feel farther away and more relaxed and that’s amazing. Property in the UP isn’t that expensive and I’ve thought about throwing down a couple thousand for a few acres. I don’t know we’ll see. 🤔
We spent the night at Taquahmenon State Park.
My cousins Bobby and Anne (father/daughter)
We had a decent campsite right across from the river and I went for a swim. The water was chilly for sure but it wasn’t that bad. We sat by the fire and I went to bed early because I am not a night person plus I did not have any beer or other spirits with me to entice me to stay up and sit around the fire. My cousins drove across the way to look at all the stars but I was happy to be in bed after a long days drive.
The next day we packed up and headed further up north and found a hotel room to stay in. Let me tell you about this hotel room… It was straight out of the 70’s. I opened the door and this whiff of what must’ve been some kind of powdered cleaner came wafting out of the room. Quite frankly I was a little put off and really wanted to spend the night in the car but I figured what the hell, hopefully I won’t get bedbugs. I have to be honest though, it was quite comfortable and I’m happy to report I don’t have bedbugs!
We left the hotel super early the next morning and made our way up to Copper Harbor which is almost the very tip of the Upper Peninsula. It’s a little town but it’s quite picturesque with it restaurants and boats bobbing around. We dropped off our gear and the crew loaded it onto the ferry and we boarded the boat for the 55 mile journey across Lake Superior.
I’m not gonna lie I was kind of nervous about such a long boat ride because it takes three hours. I even read the complete story of the Edmund Fitzgerald and everything that happened and why it sank near Whitefish Point on Lake Superior. I was that in my head about it. Lake Superior actually has its own weather system. It is the deepest, biggest and coldest freshwater lake on the planet. But I couldn’t of lucked out more than I did because the ride over was like butter. It was blue skies, calm water and aaaamazing!
There’s only one other time that I was actually on a boat in open water and that was with an old boyfriend on a whale watching tour on the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Monterey, California. Although that was a smaller boat, it was even more worrisome because the horizon just kept ticking back-and-forth violently. I don’t get motion sickness but like any human I do have a fear of being eaten alive by sharks. Just a side-note: sharks don’t actually want to eat humans and rarely do even bite humans. Sharks I love you and you’re an amazing species! I’d actually like to swim in open water with you one day…on purpose!
After the three hour boat ride we landed at Rock Harbor on Isle Royale. Finally we made it! I was so stoked dudes! We listened to the ranger give a talk to the backpackers about the do’s and don’ts of the island. After that we bought any last minute snacks that we wanted, got our permits to actually be on the trail and we set off. Oh wait…before we started on the trail we weighed our packs because they have a weighing station which I thought was pretty cool. My pack with 32 pounds. It weighed more than what I wanted it to but hey, it’s OK. My cousin Bobby weighed his pack and it weighed 58 pounds. His daughter and I tried to talk him out of some of the weight but him being an ex marine and wanting to be prepared for everything, well it weighed him down and greatly affected his journey.
From Rock Harbor we headed east along the coast and it was quite a rocky start to our trip. I mean it was literally rocky! The scenery was gorgeous as we climbed the rocks and peered across the sparse pinetrees out into the vast open blue of Lake Superior. I stopped to take a picture of the scenery and for the first time in 11 months I felt euphoric, alive and very happy! I felt like I was back home as in back home in the happy place in my soul. ☺️
A view from the first leg of our journey!
We headed east to Three Mile campground and then just past it we hung a right and headed up toward the ridge to Mount Franklin. The highest elevation on the island it’s only about 1300 feet so it’s not that much of a climb. My awesome friend Matty Poptart lent me his ultra lightweight Zpack backpack and it was a godsend! I’m actually going to invest the $325 and get one. It was on this trip that I realized how much stuff I used to carry that I never actually needed.
We ran into a ranger and he checked our permit and then we headed back up toward the ridge. As we crested the ridge to Mt. Franklin I turned around. The birds-eye view of the lower lying island and the blue waters of Lake Superior appeared out of nowhere. There was a nice breeze up top and I took off my pack and plopped down for a little bit. With the sun on my face and a breeze blowing across my sweaty body I knew the climb was worth it.
We hiked down off the ridge to the north side of the island. We encountered dense brush but luckily there were narrow boardwalks to get us across these wide and sometimes incredibley dense marshes. You are able to back country camp but you have to bushwhack your way through the terrain and let me tell you you would need a Crocodile Dundee kind machete to do it! We came to rest upon a downed tree to drink some water and have a snack. It was also at this juncture that we came across a beaver dam right in the middle of our trail so we had to divert to the left and go around it to get back on the trail. I think beavers are one of the coolest animals on the planet! At that point I had to trade my tennis shoes in for my hiking boots.
Beavers just doing their thing. Hike around it human!
I cannot stand hiking in hiking boots. I have never found a truly comfortable pair but I’ve always worn them because I felt I had to. It wasn’t until a trip that I was on a few years ago where this one woman was hiking in her tennis shoes. I said, “You’re hiking in tennis shoes?” She said, “Yes! I have way more flexibility and agility in tennis shoes than I ever had with a pair of hiking boots.” From then on I’ve always worn tennis shoes and carried my hiking boots on the back of my backpack in case I needed them. And I needed them to get around the beaver dam so I’m glad that I had them!
After descending the north-east side of the island we came up on Lane Cove. I hiked ahead so I could find a spot for my one cousin and I to set up our tent as we were tent sharing. I found a beautiful spot on the edge of the water and hurriedly set up the tent so no one else could claim the spot. My other cousin, her dad, set up his tent right next to ours.
I may hate tent camping but the views when you wake up are pretty cool
We ended up spending two days at Lane Cove because it took a while for my cousin Bobby to recover from the first day of carrying his 58 pound pack. Taking two days to spend there wasn’t such a bad idea as it was really peaceful and beautiful. After all we just spent 2 1/4 days in the car so it was nice to rest easy for a couple nights and relax.
Of course coffee ☕️ at Lane Cove
Also let me tell you about tent camping. I hate it! The only way I like to tent camp is if I’m with a boyfriend. Somehow snuggling next to someone makes the hard ground a little softer… LOL! It doesn’t matter what type of air pad I use or how I angle the tent whether it’s uphill, downhill or sidehill, I hate it. My back hurts, my neck hurts and I am miserable for the first few nights until my body can adjust to the hard ground. Everything that we read before this trip said that hammock camping was not recommended. Yet at the next campsite over there was a young lady hammock camping! Uggghhhhh!!!!!! I love to hammock camp. You can set it up over water, sway in the night air and your back is fully supported just like you’re in a nice little cocoon!
My cousin Anna taking in the view at Lane Cove
Lane Cove is where I first swam in Lake Superior. Now I knew it was going to be cold but I didn’t realize how cold. I only managed to stay in for about 20 seconds because I thought my limbs were going to fall off like how icicles break off the side of a house! Lol…But it woke me up and it was incredibly refreshing!
After just chilling out and enjoying the scenery of Lane Cove we packed up our packs and headed back up toward the ridge and further east along the Green Stone Ridge trail to the fire tower. The views from the fire tower could never be done justice with pictures from my iPhone. I could’ve stayed up there all day and spent the night up there because it was that pretty. I pretty much had about a 320° view of the island. It was breathtaking, peaceful and just blissful. After I took several pictures and videos from atop the fire tower we descended down the Ojibway trail to Daisy Farm campground.
Atop the fire tower was so much better in person!!!
It was at Daisy Farm that we got to stay in a lean-to for the first time. The great thing about these lean-to’s is that they are screened in because black-fly season up there is just horrific. Luckily we missed black-fly season!
The first thing I did after dropping my bag at Daisy Farm was immediately change into my swimsuit and sprint towards Lake Superior. The hiking that day was sunny, hot and exposed and I was stinky and sweaty.
I of course had my cousin Anna video every time I went swimming in a body of water to prove that I did it. So after we got to the shore I decided that I was going to attempt to run into Lake Superior and immediately immerse myself underwater. That my friends, did not happen! The water at Lane Cove is calm and protected which made it just a tad warmer than the exposed waters along the outlying coastline of the island. As soon as I got up to my calves in this part of Lake superior I immediately ran out and back on shore. My legs were bluish red because it was that cold! It felt like 100 ice picks piercing my legs at the same time! It was insane dudes! But on the second attempt I did it! I walked out there through the ice piercing pain and dunked my entire body because if I didn’t my skin was going to crawl off me because I was that gross from hiking that day! Plus I didn’t want my two cousins to leave me in the lean-to by myself to ferment 🤪.
That night we made some dinner then I headed off to bed. The next morning my two cousins went off on a father/daughter hike to Moskey Basin. I chose not to go with them just because 1. I wanted them to have some father/daughter time on this trip and 2. I just really truly needed a day to myself. I love my family and I love backpacking with friends but sometimes you just want to take in the beauty of a place by yourself….and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I took two naps that day. I also laid on the little shore and sat out on the dock and chitchatted with all the backpackers going to and from the campground. It was a really cool day! At about 4 o’clock that afternoon my cousins came back into camp. Just after they came back to camp a guy came through with a giant and I mean a gargantuan lake trout that he just caught. Normally I don’t like fishing. Once in while I eat fish but I can’t be there when it’s caught because I am just going to throw it back into the water so it can live a happy little swimming life! However this guy said that he was canoeing the island by himself and there’s no way he could eat that whole lake trout. He went back to his camp, filleted it up and divided it up among several backpackers. My cousin put it in a small pan with some salt and pepper and him and I had the most amazing freshwater fish I’ve ever had in my life!!! I think we both kind of hoped the guy would have caught another one the next day but it didn’t happen… Total bummer.
After spending two days at Daisy farm we packed up and hiked four miles to Three Mile campground. We thought about hiking back to Rock Harbor but we didn’t think that we would get a campsite. Good thing that we didn’t because all the campsites were taken. How do I know this? I know this because once we got to Three Mile campground it was about one in the afternoon and I looked at my cousins and I said, “What the heck are we gonna do for the rest the day? It’s only a 3 mile hike to Rock Harbor and at Rock Harbor there are chips, cookies, Diet Coke’s and beer!” We all agreed this was a fabulous idea and so we headed off on a 6 mile round trip hike just so we could get snacks. It was along that hike that we came across Tobin Bay.
We got to watch the sea planes take off and that was pretty cool. It was quiet on that side of the trail and provided a very peaceful hike.
After we went to the visitor center and stocked up on beer, pop, cookies and Doritos we plopped down by the marina just to take in the boats, sun and water. It was there that we saw more wildlife in 15 minutes than we had on our entire trip. We saw a loon up close which was super cool because we’d only seen them from a distance and then we saw a beaver that just swam right up to the dock and underneath it like it was no big deal.
The island is 45×9 miles. There are approximately 1600 moose that inhabit Isle Royale National Park. During our 6 day 5 night stay we did not see one single freakin’ moose! My one cousin claims that he saw the hind end of one but neither his daughter nor I witnessed it so I’m not so sure. 😏. I was disappointed not to see a moose because I had spent 2 1/2 weeks traveling through New England last October and did not see one moose! Although I saw endless “Moose X-ing” signs. What the heck dudes?
After one night at Three Mile campground we packed our bags again and we headed back to Rock Harbor we we originally started out. We weighed our packs at the end of the trip and mine weighed under 32 pounds which made me kind of happy but you’d expect that when you’ve eaten all your food and drank all your water! Hahaha….
We hung out at Rock Harbor and listened to a park ranger give a presentation about the animals on the island. Did you know that Isle Royale has its own species of squirrel. These things are thieves. They don’t care if you’re sitting there eating your dinner as they will brazenly walk right up to you and grab it off your fork!
Finally the time came to when we had to board the boat to head back to the mainland. The first hour and a half of this crossing did not sit well with me. The lake was kind of choppy with 2 to 4 foot waves but to me they felt like 30 to 40 foot waves. Again I don’t get motion sickness but I knew then how cold Lake Superior is and I thought for sure we were going to go down and that my heart would freeze after about 60 seconds of being in the water and I would be a popsicle! I went into the main cabin of the boat and I sat down next to this one gentleman who was sitting alone but with four empty seats around him. I asked if I could join him he said yes as he only had two other friends with him. I put my head on my arms on the table and tried not to think about the boat ride. This sweet guy started making small talk and soon his two friends joined him. His two friends turned out to be his sister and his brother-in-law and they couldn’t have been nicer folks. They were all retired and on this trip together. Julie the lady of the group asked me if I knew how to play euchre. I told her I did not but I was willing to learn and she said great because they needed four people to play. So for the next two hours I played euchre with this fine group of folks and it completely took my mind off the boat ride!
I highly recommend everyone visit Isle Royale National Park. It is the least visited but the most revisited of all the national parks.
You won’t have cell service but you will have your sanity restored!
~Lori
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
I feel like I’m blocked. I feel like I’m moving forward but my spirit is blocked. I don’t know how to become, unblocked?…
I have been gung ho running towards this dream of buying a van for almost a solid year now. Dudes, a solid year! Last night was the first time that I let myself spend the money and get a hotel room so I could completely sit in silence, by silence I mean turning the cell phone about 8 o’clock, and just sleep. Now and then I’ve stayed with friends and family but it’s not the same.
Housesitting, pet sitting or just staying with friends or family for a few days is NOT the same as giving yourself the gift of alone time.
Seriously last night I Googled how to tell if I was in a rut. I am but I’m not right?. As far as my social life, love life and travel life are concerned I am in a total and complete rut! I’ve been working and working and working and working to pay things off and put money away to buy this van. Dudes it’s like I have tunnel vision.
I was chitchatting with my manager today picking up shifts for next week and she says, “Lori do you really want to work that much? Do you really want to work that many days in a row?” Even she can tell I’ve been burning the candle at both ends!
I lost my groove and creativity. I had a nice hotel room last night and I did not even invite over “the dude” because all I wanted was peace and quiet and sleep. Me too tired to smooch and snuggle? The answer is HECK YES! Dear god something must be wrong with me!… LOL
Not to mention my poor body man! When I get tired I make really super crappy life decisions as far as working out and food goes. I really need to get a grip and realign myself because being healthy, meditating and yoga/workingout on a daily basis is what my career goal is.
Do you ever get so tired to the point where you just start crying? I mean it may be a totally chic thing to do but I’m telling you it’s happened way too often lately! At least three times this past week! 😭. (I can’t even blame on my period 😕)
I have never been one to put forth a ton of effort towards something that does not interest me, just ask my parents… LOL. But when there is something that I really want, holy crap do I go full steam ahead into it! Sometimes when I’m driving down the road I have is out of body experience where I’m beside myself and I can see myself literally driving in my van winding through Utah, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming etc.
So I’ve been ranting for a little bit now so I guess the moral of the story is is that I need to start dedicating time to myself. My van will come in due time but if I don’t tart start taking care myself I’m going to go nuts! 🥜
I’m so going to get a hotel room once a month or once every two months for sure because I cannot believe I didn’t do that earlier!!!
Peace, love and R&R,
~Lori
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
We got to watch the sea planes take off and that was pretty cool. It was quiet on that side of the trail and provided a very peaceful hike.
Wild Flowers Lori 