A Special Autumn Trip Up North

A few weekends ago, I did something I haven’t done since high school: I spent a weekend up at the cabin, along with Brian and the kids, during the month of October. It was beautiful, with the leaves changing and falling, the quiet lake, and the damp autumn air.

We arrived at the cabin late in the evening on Friday, unpacked the van, and put the kids to bed. The air smelled like fresh rain and moisture dripped from the trees in tiny, sparkling beads. My parents always say that the cool fall nights up at the cabin make for “good sleeping weather,” and I absolutely agree. It was so nice to cozy up under extra layers, one of which was an old wool army blanket.

Saturday morning we walked around the trails at the top of the hill, collecting leaves and talking with the neighbors. We also practiced our tree identification with the hophornbeams and sugar maples, which are new to the woods, and the stalwart basswoods, oaks, and pines, which have been part of the northwoods for many years. Saturday afternoon we canoed to a couple different spots around the lake and hiked in the woods. At the Sandy Beach, which is across the lake to the north, Ruthie and I found as many different kinds of mushrooms as we could, poking up through the dirt and adorning rotting logs, while Brian and Samuel searched for young fir trees to dig up and bring home. Samuel also brought me back to a marshy area hidden among the trees to show me a group of maples with bright yellow and orange leaves, my two favorite colors. The kids even swam, although the water temperature hovered just above 60 degrees. After the Sandy Beach, we canoed to the boat launch, which is across the lake to the south, and hiked along a footpath connected to the boat launch that leads to a few cabins nestled deep in the woods. The kids pretended to be velociraptors; Brian and I were the t-rexes on the hunt.

On Sunday morning, we packed up our things, took the sheets off the beds to take home and wash, and said goodbye to the cabin for the winter. Lord willing, we’ll be back next summer, and we’re all looking forward to it already.

Here’s a story I wrote for The Habit about our canoe trip to the boat launch (our assignment was to write without adjectives or adverbs–it was much harder than I thought it would be) and some photos of the cabin, one of my favorite places in the world:

Canoeing Through the Morning Mist

We canoed across a lake as still as glass. Mist hung in the air and clung to our faces and arms like cobwebs. The kids shivered in their seat as they dipped their hands in the water, passing the time until we reached the boat launch. In the distance, a motor coughed and hummed into life. Otherwise, we canoed through silence and stillness as the morning waited for the sun to escape the clouds. 

We arrived at the boat launch and scrambled onto the dock to the left of the concrete. My husband lashed the canoe to one of the posts while the kids and I took off our life jackets and waited for him in the shelter of the woods. Leaves trickled through the air like confetti at a party and covered the firs like dresses. Maples bent to form a canopy through which we could walk. The footpath invited me to take a step, to enter a world filled with color. My husband joined us, and we obliged the footpath, sneaking through the woods like deer.

As we walked, we caught a glimpse of the sun dispelling the mist and making the lake sparkle like diamonds. Joy filled the air like electricity, which turned our sneaking into sauntering. Nothing in nature matches the beauty of the woods in the fall.

One of My Favorite Places in the World