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The dichotomy of the rural, rugged, nature of the Upper Peninsula and the throngs of tourists who sometimes (often, anymore) swarm the place is a bit difficult to endure. I love that people love my places, but I find it harder and harder to spontaneously travel here (like much of the western Michigan shoreline) without planning well in advance (hence, not allowing for spontaneity at all). I did not plan this leg of my birthday week in advance. I did not plan this leg at all, and have no idea where I’ll pitch my tent or reserve a room. Yet, I keep going north until I hit Munising, which is really only a couple hours from the Garden Peninsula, but after several stop-offs to check out waterfalls and do a little hiking, I arrive late afternoon.

I piggyback on some free wifi in a restaurant parking lot and discover that none of the state parks have any open sites at all. These are of course only the parks that allow reservations, and though there are numerous other campgrounds that are first-come-first-served, I am quite sure that they are all full as well or quickly on their way to becoming so, being the 4th of July weekend and being that people come to the UP specifically to camp. I decide to check local hotels for a room, and quickly find that the hotels are also filling up fast. I head out of town a ways, now preoccupied with finding a place to sleep, realizing I’d really prefer not to sleep in my car, and end up with the very last room in a hotel just outside of town, exorbitantly priced (because they can), but after tent camping for 5 days, I’m ready for a bed and a bath. The hotel clerk tells me that by 8pm, there will not be any rooms available on the entire upper peninsula. Over the years, I have slept in my car several times while in the UP, but this is my birthday week, and I am grateful for my expensive room, and the peace of mind knowing where I’ll sleep frees me up to enjoy the area. This is an ongoing and important lesson for me: It’s good to be kind to myself, to allow the expense to sometimes take less precedence over what makes me feel good. This is not everyone’s lesson. Some need to learn the opposite. We all have our shit.

I head toward the lake shore and hike into some waterfalls. I arrive late enough in the day that the throngs of people are mostly heading back out, and although I feel proud of my beautiful mitten state for being a destination for so many people from all over the planet, I also feel so sad for the earth, trod upon by so many hundreds (likely thousands) of tourists. The trail is utterly destroyed, just trenches of mud when not a boardwalk. I see some of the visitors scaling the rock face, which is so hard on the ecosystem, not to mention dangerous for the people. This area is really not intended to support such humanity. These waterfalls are very popular and advertised on a lot of the UP tourism paraphernalia, and I decide I’ve seen enough and head for some less accessible and little known falls just down the road.

I park in the unmarked gravel area and cross the road to locate the trailhead. The last time I was here was several years ago during the winter (really April of that year, but there was still a great deal of snow). It was breathtakingly beautiful in its stark and frozen state, and I’m excited to see the difference.

And, oh, what a difference. The forest is lush, green, vibrantly alive, and, moving my body again after so many hours in the car revives me. There are very few people and because the trail is not “tended” (there are no boardwalks or handrails), the visitors that have made the trek seem more respectful of the area. I am not distracted by their presence, meaning their presence doesn’t detract from the experience, and I don’t feel I need to be a “host” or to check myself from silently condemning or judging them.

I am back in the land of cell service, up here near the major city of Munising, and my guy’s texts over the past week had all dinged through when I arrived. Some were concerned, some angry. Prior to hiking the trail, I had sent him a note saying that I had service for a while. At the falls, I find myself aware of having cell service again after so many days “unplugged”, and my attention is drawn to the potential for a small vibration from my rear pocket. It is fear and anticipation and hope that he will call or text. He feels like a stranger to me. A stranger I miss terribly.

There are wonderful things about him. Some things that I had never dreamed could be so good, and of course, there are the not wonderful things. I think of his goodness and strength, and I am again profoundly sad that he is not sharing the beauty of this area with me, or this milestone in my life. I walk through the forest, sinking ever so slightly with each step into the spongy soft earth, aware of the sappy pine scent rising from the sun-soaked floor, and think about the man I’ve loved for two years, who I feel I am losing. I think of how the falls looked here 3 years ago at the end of winter, frozen, silent, and how the forest is now so full of life. It is the same place. He is the same man. If I were just dropped into this forest today, I don’t know that I would recognize it based on what I saw the first time. Things change.

The phone does not vibrate. He does not text back. Back at the hotel, I call and leave a voice mail. He finally calls later that evening and is angry that I hadn’t let him know where I was for so many days. His first words to me in over a week are from anger. He doesn’t ask how I am or how the trip is going. He tells me all he has done all week is work. All I can think is that he couldn’t come with me for even part of this trip. I am so hurt, and don’t understand at all. I don’t really want to understand. It’s so much more than this trip, or other trips, or his work, or my birthday.

Fog hangs heavy in the air the next morning. I awake knowing in my heart it’s time to let him go. I stand in the parking lot of the expensive hotel, and say the words I hoped to never need to say to him. I tell him how much I love him and wish him well, and want him to be happy. He seems surprised, but wishes me well also, telling me all the same things, too. Through the thick mist, I am aware of some motorcyclists in the parking lot, smoking, watching me cry and hug myself as I walk in circles, breaking. I feel no judgment from them, which I’m thankful for, but I wish I could have spared them this. I wish…I wish a lot of things.

I check out of the hotel and finally turn the car towards home, peering through the dense fog, not sure what lies ahead of me, taking one mile at a time.

My days on the Garden come to an end, as do my definitive plans. I’m not sure where exactly I want to go next, but I know without a doubt it’s not back home. I head farther north still, my mind’s eye seeking Lake Superior several hours ahead of me in all it’s crashing waves-, supremely cold-, astoundingly deep-glory. I am keenly aware that it is a holiday weekend and that without any set plans or a reservation, I could end up sleeping in my vehicle. I’m okay with that.

I had cell service for about a split second one afternoon while still at Fayette, and sent a text to my daughter to let her know I was okay and heading farther north. Just these few days living cell-free has made me feel more in tune and less agitated about keeping in touch, but it has been on my mind that she might be worrying about my lack of contact. I think cell phones are great, and yet, I think we’ve lost some innate ability to tap an intrinsic knowing that our loved ones are just doing their thing when we haven’t heard from them, and to trust (like we used to in the olden days) (when we used to say “olden” instead of just “old”) that they will be in touch with us when they are able. My amazing daughter, true to form, shoots a text immediately (of course) in response thanking me for being in touch and wishing me well. She’s grown up in the world of cell phones and constant contact, but somehow she still gets it. What a gift her quick response and subsequent dismissal are!

On the way to the northern shoreline of the Upper Peninsula, I swing into the Seney Wilderness Area, a 25,000-plus acre portion of the 95,000-plus acre Seney Wildlife Refuge. The mosquitoes are in fine form, as are the flies (black, deer, and pesky). I turn my jeep onto the 7-mile loop through the Wilderness Area, which is basically a one-way, 10mph two-track. You don’t really get to turn around once you head in.

The sky is dark, and the ponds look deep and foreboding. I pull off to take photos here and there, and hike into the wilderness periodically. For being a refuge for birds and waterfowl, the refuge is very quiet, eerily so. No other cars or people in sight for very long periods of time, I feel as if I am the only person in the world. It is both an incredible and desolate feeling. I wonder how the experience would have differed had my guy chosen to accompany me on this trip. There is simply no way to know, I realize, because he didn’t.

He hasn’t accompanied me on a number of my trips. In fact, my feeling without having kept track is that I am very often hiking alone, biking alone, camping along, traveling alone. This is an ongoing theme in my life – being alone. Perhaps I attract that reality, being a rather solitary person, or maybe I just attract the type of guy uninterested in accompanying me on my adventures. It’s quite possibly a combination of these things, as well as probably a thousand other things. We know maybe 1% of the truth in any given situation, and I recognize that my perception of being low on his priority list may well be totally wrong. But it feels that way – I feel I am unimportant to him, and that is a crappy feeling indeed. I am in the midst of spending my 50th birthday week alone in all my favorite places, after being deliriously excited about sharing these places with him, finally having a partner to share them with. He of course had no way of knowing how excited I was because I never told him how important this was to me. I simply gave him the dates of travel and assumed he would see the significance. He didn’t see the significance, and here I am, alone again. Self-sabotage at its finest, perhaps.

Mulling over all these angles as I maneuver the two-track through the refuge, I acknowledge that it’s highly likely I didn’t press the dates of travel with him, I didn’t spell out in bold, bright, colors that I wanted him with me, because there are bigger problems between us, and we are most certainly nearing the end of our relationship. While it may only be early July, we are in the autumn of our union, and winter is coming soon.

After several days on the Leelanau Peninsula, I cross the Mackinaw Bridge to the Upper Peninsula, heading for yet another — the Garden Peninsula. I text my guy who opted to stay home for this trip, and let him know my service is going to be sporadic, if available at all. I’m still hurting that he decided not to come on this special week that I had been planning and talking about with him for months. I turn off my phone purposely before receiving a reply, knowing that I’ll be driving for several more hours anyway. I am a little bitter, a little petulant. Mostly hurt. Crossing the Bridge, though, lifts my spirits and a flood of memories washes my sourness away as I feel my heart strain toward the Upper, toward this land that is so special to me, and the secrets it holds.

The Garden is a hearty couple hours west on US 2, which in itself is a lovely stretch of road along the Lake Michigan shore. Towns with names like Epoufette, Naubinway, and Manistique (not to be confused with Manistee or Marquette, also Michigan towns) create great stop-offs, along with long, uninterrupted strips of sandy shore, an occasional roadside park with picnic tables and grills, and plenty of state forest to explore if a person ever had the time. The Cut River Bridge is along this stretch as well and a favorite destination of mine, but the bridge is under construction this time so I get to be detoured and discover a little area around Brevort Lake that I make a mental note to return to. After a morning of packing up my Leelanau campsite, and driving up the coast to the bridge, it’s already past noon and I’m ready to get myself set up and settled on the Garden.

Where I’m heading is, in fact, just south of a little town called Garden (zip code 49835 – not to be confused with Garden City, Michigan, zip code 48135, over in the thumb area I think). The campground is part of the state historic site which is the town of Fayette, where pig iron was made in huge furnaces, and shipped out of the beautifully blue harbor. I suppose the harbor water may not have been blue back then, what with the waste of the towns people and the furnaces, but today, the water is as lovely as any Mediterranean sea.

From my campsite I can see Lake Michigan through the cedar forest, glinting in the sun. My thoughts continue to return to my unplanned solitude, frankly bumming me out, and making me realize other times that my guy hasn’t followed through with our plan, or more specifically, with things I wanted to share with him. I make my way through the forest to the shore, marveling (yes, marveling) at the huge stones, which help take my mind completely off my heartache. The rocks up here feel ancient, like saying just the right word or stepping into a certain spot in the forest will catapult me across time to another dimension. It feels safe, peaceful, and so much bigger than me and my current woes.

As evening approaches, the sun begins to set across the lake, throwing the most amazing red light across the trees. I have a sudden urge to talk to my guy, to share this incredible beauty with him, and when powering up the phone, learn that I do in fact have no service. As in zero, no bars, no LTE, not even 4G, no nothing.

There is something very freeing about not having any cell service. The inability to get distracted by the Power of the Screen seems to let something in me reawaken – like taking off sunglasses or being able to take a deep breath again. I watch the sunset, and go back to my campsite and enjoy the night sounds, thinking deep thoughts to completion, rather than being pulled off by an urge to look up something on the internet, or jumping on some notification. The night sounds grow louder as the sun sets, and I lean back in my little camp chair, the warm campfire crackling, and just breathe, and listen.

For my 50th birthday, I planned a camping trip that starts with one of my favorite places to camp, right on the tip of the Leealanua Peninsula, so close to beautiful Lake Michigan I can hear the gentle waves from my tent. This trip was supposed to be spent with my guy, yet, here I am, camping alone again. There is a whole history of what lead to this, pieces of which may or may not come forth here, but today, in this moment, just north of Northport, mine is a solitary excursion.

Solitude can be a wonderful healer. We can place ourselves “away” – from distraction, noise, and obligations, at peace in our solitude as our souls reawaken and our senses come alive again. “Solitary” has a bit of a different ring than “solitude” as if a gauze of sadness surrounds that which is – let’s face it – alone, perhaps self-imposed, perhaps not. “Alone,” which feels like a penance somehow, as though there is a fault to find or face, because alone implies lonely, and that is typically not an emotion people seek to experience.

I am no stranger to camping alone. Prior to my daughter, I have a memory of being without a car but wanting to camp, and some friend drove me out to the shore, a good hour one-way, dropped me and my gear at the campground, and dutifully collected me again several days later. There are many trips and many times where I didn’t let the lack of a companion stall my drive for adenture, for travel. In my early years, I gained a great deal of strength from these ventures. Now, in what I suppose are my later years, it is becoming tiring. I would like to share these moments with someone. Though possible, it feels a bit ridiculous to reminesce with oneself.

I did of course have a good 20 or so years in there where I camped with my daughter, which were lovely, incredible, wonderful trips. For the first 5 or so, she’s really too young to remember, but I remember. I remember her sleeping in the tent when she was just maybe 7 months old, while the absolute worst thunderstorm I’ve ever camped through (then or since) howled around us. She still sleeps like that. She has grown into a young woman who not only loves to camp, but who has shared that love with her now-husband. I don’t mean to dismiss those years as inconsequential, because they were in fact monumental to not only her life but mine as well. Sharing those moments with her, special times in special places, places made special through the sharing, only confirm that “the rest of the trips” were by myself. It’s as though I see the trips with my daughter in full color, vibrant and warm, adding to my life in ways that feel expansive and incredibly comforting. My trips in solitude are like Ansel Adams prints in black and white – lovely, yes, crystallized moments, moments that have shaped my inner world deeply.

My life, this primarily solitary journey, has been a series of choices, perhaps some would perceive as missteps or paths followed that lead me astray. I believe we are all doing our best and that the regrets or hardships can be lessons and teach us to love and grow. There is always something good to find, something that resembles love. Something. Some nugget. I must remind myself of this: There are no true mistakes.

I think all this and more of course on the drive up, wishing so badly that my guy would have come with me, but knowing, regardless, that I will find peace in this beautiful area of Michigan. I arrived just before the sun began to seep into the Big Lake as I affectionately call my old friend, Lake Michigan. I pitched my tent, built a fire, strung the hammock, laid all my birthday cards out on the picnic table, and listened to the waves just feet from my campsite, while I began to turn quietly inward. Alone, in nature.

After months of planning and preparation, my daughter’s Big Day arrived and–it seemed—departed in the blink of a mother’s teary, happy eye. I adore my son-in-law, who I dub the Best SIL Ever for more reasons than just his good choice to marry my daughter, but a wedding is still an ending in some ways, especially if you’re a single mom who raised your kiddo nearly all by herself. So what’s a tearful new mother-in-law to do, but head north, to the breathtaking beauty of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, specifically the Platte River area.

It’s raining as I drive north, and I ponder how to best get the tent set up by myself without getting it or myself too soaked. It is nearly dark when I arrive, and too wet for me to bother with a fire, but too early to just pitch the tent and go to sleep. I have had the same small 2-person tent for many years I got at Target for $20, and to my surprise, has held up quite nicely for a tent that I figured would last maybe one season. Two shock cords make it super simple to get the tent ready, and as I get my sleeping bag, clothes, and reading materials situated, the rain turns into a deluge.

I hunker down with my book and listen to the rain, thinking about the look on my daughter’s face at her lovely wedding, and cry big wet happy emotional mom-tears. Eventually I realize that all the wetness on my face isn’t dripping just from my overly full heart, but also from the ceiling of the tent. After all the years, this is the first summer I forgot to water proof my gear, and after being in the elements so many times, the tent definitely needed some help to repel the water.

It’s an easy fix and gets my mind off my “blues” — I simply drape a plastic tablecloth that I had leftover from the dessert table, and had luckily tossed into my camping gear last minute — over the top of the tent, and voila, no more drips. I’ve brought that same tablecloth with me now on each camping trip since and been glad to have it several times. I remember thinking to myself, “What on earth will you do with that, Lisa?” but I’m so glad I listened to my gut and not myself (however that works).

In the morning, the rain is quiet but steady, yet I’m able to make coffee and breakfast over my little campstove, tucked under my umbrella I have balanced in the crook of my arm. Canned white potatoes fried in butter are a camping favorite of our family, which I’ve determined is probably because of their high sodium content. I am not a “sweet” person, meaning my flavor pallet of choice is savory, specifically salty. These potatoes were a staple on the many camping trips with my daughter over the years, so I indulge myself with a little fat and salt to get my day started, and head out for a walk in the woods.

There is something about a forest during or just after a shower….the dripping leaves, the hushed dampness of the forest, and the smell of the earth rising up make me feel simultaneously young, invigorated, and reverent. Even as I begin to cry again – this crying! I had no idea that the aftermath of the wedding would be such an intensely powerful event. I simply cannot stop crying for long. I am not outright sobbing, but the tears just stream as I walk the peaceful trail to the shore, the steady raindrops falling from the brim of my raincoat’s hood.

By the time I get to the water’s edge, the storms (both the internal one and the external) have mostly passed, and I find I am just exhausted. I sleep on the shore in the wet sand, listening to the waves, for what feels like a long time. I awake soaked through, and stare out into the water, in somewhat of a daze, as wave after wave rolls in and crashes at my feet.

Eventually I’m hungry and head back to the camp, where, after making lunch, I take another nap, but not before crying a bit more (really? more tears?!), and when I awake this time, I feel more refreshed and laugh at myself a bit. Such weepiness. I shake it off and head out to discover more nature, and am not disappointed.

This pattern continues — cry, sleep, hike, cry, sleep, et cetera, intermixed with cooking, reading by the fire, and sometimes biking instead of hiking. The weather begins to clear a couple days in, and my heart is feeling lighter. I’ve met the “neighbors” who rolled in during one of the torrential downpours, and because the kind woman was peering worriedly into my streaky face, I confess to my fragile psychological state, saying limply, “My only daughter just got married.” She laughs, pats my hand, and says, “It takes about a week”. A mother of two married children, she’s been through this. Her words bring comfort somehow and off I go on a weepy-but-healing bike ride.

I find a marsh (or is it a swamp? I’m never sure of the difference), that seems to go on for a long distance as I pedal along an old two-track trail. The sounds of the marsh (or swamp) fill my ears and make me think about ecosystems and insects and other things that start with vowels…but I steer clear of that train since my daughter’s name also begins with a vowel, and redirect my thoughts back to my immeidate surroundings. “Be here now, Lisa”, I remind myself. I walk the bike along the edge of the water and listen, and breathe.

I made plans for this trip two or three months before the wedding, knowing I would want to recuperate, but never realizing just how emotionally exhausted I would be. Another example of trusting my gut, even if when my brain doesn’t realize it is. It’s probably a good thing that my guy opted out of this trip I think, though it would have been nice to have his comfort in my more extreme moments of being a weepy mess. Weddings are lovely, a symbol of new beginnings, the merging of lives, and my daughter and her husband’s wedding were just that — lovely, a fantastic beginning. I had been feeling acutely the “ending” part of the equation: the person for whom I had poured every bit of my focus toward raising and loving for the past 19 years now had another Number One. I was no longer the primary person in her life. Of course, that means I succeeded as a parent – it’s just what I had hoped for her, and certainly her hubby is the very best man for her new partnership.

It is also, of course, a new beginning for me. I now have a son-in-law! I’ve never had a son before (though I was convinced during my pregnancy that my daughter was, in fact, a boy, primarily because I feared if I had a girl like me I’d be in for a wild ride). But that’s another story for another day. I now have two wonderful children to share things with, and they are so much fun to be around. I also get to focus on me again, after almost two decades not doing so. I am about to turn 50, and am ready to figure out My Next Move.

I also realize that a lot of my emotional melancholia of the last few days is related to what I am coming to accept as the ending of my own love relationship. We were engaged, then we agreed to call off the engagement but continue to date each other exclusively, and yet, it is slowly fizzling out, like a small campfire in the rain. There have been huge warning signs for months now, and events at the recent wedding only contributed to fuel the neon. I’m not ready to give him up, but I see that the end is coming. After another “good cry” – this one purely about my relationship – and another nap, I revive myself and resolve to enjoy him while I do still have in my life, and to remember to be thankful for the wonderful times we’ve had. It’s so easy to focus on the bad times; I’ve spent months doing just that – hoping to “fix” us by identifying what needed to change, but all the while pouring my energy into what was wrong, rather than building up what wasn’t.

My last jaunt down to the beach I find the sun is shining, all the clouds have cleared, and the beautiful Sleeping Bear Dunes are visible in the distance. I head over to the mouth of the Platte River where it flows into Lake Michigan (what I affectionately call the Big Lake), and I get to see a momma duck (or bird of some sort) teaching her gaggle of babies how to surf the waves and ride them out into the open, away from the criss-crossing currents of the rivermouth. She is so confident, so persistent, and her little ones – well over a dozen in her charge – are all at varying levels of skill and ambition. Some zing past her, while others get lost several waves back and have to hustle to catch up. The momma seems to never waver; she is alone out there with her brood, and seems to know they simply must learn to swim, to navigate these waters, that it is her main focus to help them swim free of her.