I’ve landed in the sleepy village of Eagle Harbor for the night, at a circa 1920 motel lodge right on the beach. It’s a small room, but clean and comfortable — two double beds, a mini fridge, a microwave. In the morning the cafe should be open for breakfast. I may be the only person staying here tonight, my car is the only one out front, but that makes sense for late October in a town of only 55 permanent residents.
I leave Munising mid-morning after a filling breakfast of biscuits and gravy at a local, modern cafe called Earl E. Byrds. After an hour’s drive east along Lake Superior, I stop at the Presque Isle Park for an easy two-mile loop around the small peninsula. It’s rainy and foggy everywhere I go today but the shoreline is still beautiful.
Fifteen minutes away I visit the Sugarloaf Mountain trailhead to make the short, but steep hike to the summit. My dad shared last week that he had hiked this with my mom when he was based briefly in Marquette before I was born. The weather robbed me of the expansive view they probably had on a clear day, but there is an eerie magic in looking out into the fog below. The lake and town are there, somewhere, but up here it’s only me. My own castle.
That’s been a gift of this trip: I always seem to find myself alone at overlooks and summits, if only for a few minutes. It’s like I ask for space and the universe carves out what it can for me before turning their attention to the next hopeful soul.
I wander the platforms on top of Sugarloaf Mountain alone, thinking and writing poetry in my head. I come to a corner of a platform and draw out five circles on the damp wooden railing — relationships, family, work, creativity, health. My life in broad strokes. I touch the circles one by one and think about what to do, if anything. I don’t have all the answers but the ones I do have are not complicated.
Three hours of driving through the rain later, I pull into Eagle Harbor. I check myself in at the motel, the key is in the door (re: a helpful email from earlier this week), and take a walk through the small town. My room is right on the beach and, even though it’s still lightly raining, I walk across the sand and up the street to the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse. The museum and tours are closed for the season but there are some plaques outside and two large anchors from centuries-old ships. And you don’t know need a museum to overlook the lake and get a view of the lighthouse.
It doesn’t take me long to circle the rest of the town, it’s only a few blocks wide. There’s nothing open in town tonight. Shops look closed for the season and the only place that serves dinner only does so Friday-Sunday right now. Don’t worry, this wasn’t surprising to me and I picked up food on the drive. I find the memorial for Justus H. Rathbone, the founder of The Order of Knights of Pythias. It was while teaching at the schoolhouse in Eagle Harbor that he wrote the first ritual of the order. I am not at all familiar with this order, but upon a little reading they are an international, non-sectarian fraternal order established in 1864 and the first fraternal order to be chartered by an Act of Congress. “The real common thread throughout the Knights of Pythias involves our commitment to helping people; when asked what we do, we simply answer: We volunteer! We help people!”
In the gray drizzle, Eagle Harbor does feel a little like a ghost town. But a few cars do drive through while I walk and I see another family of tourists leaving the lighthouse area when I arrive. When I first pull into the lodge to park a man is getting his mail from the row of mailboxes on the other side of the street — there are a couple of rows of a dozen mailboxes along the main street, I assume a small town feature so the mailperson only has to stop in a few places rather than go door to do. The man calls out to me: “it’s not always raining here!” I tell him I don’t mind the rain. And I don’t. Maybe that’s why I’m always getting caught in it.
I’m settled in for the night to read or maybe watch a show — I haven’t done any TV since I left but if the internet holds up I might try to watch the new Our Flag Means Death episodes tonight. We’re doing okay for blog writing but I did a speed test on the wifi and I’m not sure we can withstand streaming. Cell service is also a little spotty.
I also need to plan a little for tomorrow, I have a couple of hiking possibilities but now that I’m here I can get a better feel for the area.
With Love,
Natalie