My friend, Joan Donaldson, had a reading at the Douglas Library last week. I drove out to the lakeshore in time to visit the lake for a few moments at Pier Cove.
I have a difficult time just sitting on the beach, as you might imagine. I look up that shoreline and feel it pull on me.
I enjoyed a short walk, then caught Joan's reading from On Viney's Mountain, her award-winning middle reader novel (10-years old and up). The story is set in Tennessee, and the state recently chose her book to represent the state at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C.!
Tom Sellmer and Joanne Robben spend their summers on Torch Lake and their working lives down in Georgia. This year they decided to get up here on their bicycles. 1600 miles. Wuff. They did it, and it was exhilarating. I saw them at the parade yesterday and they said they missed those 35-65 mile daily rides. Sometimes they cycle up to Charlevoix for lunch just to enjoy the feeling again. Which is a long way of saying I'm not surprised the lakeshore pulls you back. Maybe the Big Lake thought of a few more things it wants to tell you . . .
ReplyDeleteI sure hope the lake has more to tell me. I'm listening! There is a certain rhythm to walking long distances that is almost restive. Once I had several hundred miles behind me, I almost felt like the shoreline was moving beneath me and I was hovering above it. That didn't happen until I was up in your neck of the woods.
ReplyDeleteWOW--1600 miles by bike. That's adventurous!