Northcountry

Just in time for the first day of classes at my alma mater, Sleepy Eye High School, here is my essay on the assigned topic, "What I Did On My Summer Vacation (Or, More Accurately, What I Did When I Actually Left Town On My Summer Vacation)".

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"Is that thunder?"

It's a mid-July Friday afternoon, just past two o'clock, and we've already driven two hundred twenty miles. Cold air blasts through our minivan, defying the outside humidity. We stopped for lunch in Duluth, wandered in the sun for an hour, and returned to our van-turned-sauna to find foil-wrapped packages of melty chocolate soup in our ineffectual cooler. The air ripples with heat - it's perfect lake vacation weather.

As we drive north, the sky is clear but the temperature begins dropping. We keep track of its changes via a green digital readout that shows up just above the rearview mirror. At seventy degrees, Ali's voice takes on a note of panic: "I only packed one pair of long pants." In the summertime, even seventy seems cold. Another two degrees slip off the meter. "It was so hot in Lake City, I only thought to bring shorts!"

At Two Harbors, we choose the scenic route rather than the expressway. (Well, more accurately, Michal, the driver, chooses the scenic route and then tries not to get distracted by the scenery). We join a line of cars and meander, sandwiched between a RV and a truck pulling a speedboat, along the winding lakeside road. The sky becomes overcast suddenly, dark clouds tumbling over one another eagerly in an effort to make up for their tardiness, and fat raindrops begin to fall. At the first clap of thunder, the storm's full force is unleashed. Rain pounds the windshield with an unusual violence. Even with windshield wipers zipping back and forth, it is a struggle to see the road through this dense veil of rain. So much for the scenic route.

I begin to envision a weekend of looking out the windows at ever-increasing puddles. The forecast did call for showers every day, though by "showers" I didn't think it meant "torrential rains". As suddenly as it intensified, however, the rain lets up. The five minute deluge is over, and by the time we reach Beaver Bay, the only evidence of its short-winded fury exists in our recollections.

"Is that thunder?"

It's Sunday night, eleven-thirty or so. The steamy, sunstreaked weather of the afternoon finally broke at about nine, just as we were attempting a final scenic walk. Ali was all for pressing on as the lightning storm approached: "We can make it to the Point before the rain hits!" But Michal's wisdom prevailed, and we hustled for cover at the lodge, scurrying inside just as fast-falling raindrops started slapping the ground.

I thought the storm was over an hour ago; water ran in rivulets through the sloping parking lot and dripped down the windows of our room, but the sky had cleared and a cool breeze guided the metallic scent of freshly-fallen rain toward us. It seems I was wrong, though, or maybe half of the storm just got lost on the way and is only arriving now. I can't actually be sure if rain is falling, since the foul weather is actually miles away, raging somewhere over Lake Superior. In our darkened room, I can only hear the sound of thunder, accompanied by distant flashes of lightning.

The wall facing the lake is cut across by a solid band of windows, four in a row. With my head propped on a pillow and my body stretched beneath a sheet instead of the comforter, which lies in a scorned heap on the floor, I stare toward the windows through the thick stormy darkness. I can differentiate between the pine-paneled wall and the slash of sky and water only because of the lightning. Storms on the lake are different than storms on the prairie; prairie lightning stretches across the sky in jagged lines of brilliance that strain to reach the ground, but this lightning pulsates, blossoms, radiates out from a single point so quickly that it becomes difficult to mark the exact place of origin. The flashes follow each other closely, creating flickers of almost-constant illumination, and I watch them sweep from west to east across the great flat liquid expanse.

"Is that thunder?"

It's Friday evening, and we're standing on a rock promontory that juts eastward into the lake. The lodge dominates the view to the north, and a wilderness trail obscures whatever lies to the west, but from the tip of this point only water is visible to the east and south, where the world stretches into oblivion. We climb across boulders pressed together over time, marveling at the hardy wildflowers that can grow in these rocky, windswept crevasses. I walk down to the edge of the point, where the water meets the rocks, and turn into the wind as it blows spray past my face. The sun is setting slowly, shading sky and lake orange and gold and violet. From some far-off spot, we hear soft thunder, and we scan the sky for the misty clouds that indicate remote storms. But this time, the rain refuses to fall, or at least remains invisible, and the distant rumbles fade as the sun dips below the hazy greyblue horizon.