We’re thinking that in about six weeks, God willing and the creeks don’t rise, we’ll load up the SUV — 10 years old and counting — and head north, 250 miles straight as a crow flies, to our log cabin in the woods. That is where we’ll spend most of the summer and much of the fall.

The summer log cabin

Oh sure, there’ll be a getaway or two, probably a weekend toddle to the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula, where we once did sterling lighthouse duty and where friends have a cottage on Lake Michigan just a couple of hundred beach yards down from Iron Chef Mario Batali’s place. Talk about hanging with the stars.

Also in the works is another visit to a compound on Batchawana Bay, a charming Canadian corner of Lake Superior, for a promised fishing trip to Pancake Lake — accessible only by ATV — and with the one-hole outhouse a good 50 yards from the gas-lit cabin. Take the flashlight at night … and watch out for the bears.

But before that happens, we’ll still have that SUV to load, and a road trip up U.S. 23 and beyond

First in, as always, go the Labs, two of them at present: a black 11-year-old called Pocket and her 5-year-old yellow granddaughter, Miss Mimsey, plus their wagbags and their big bag of food, their toys and their grooming supplies. Nothing’s too much for these champions.

There’ll be books, too. A couple of crates of them, at least, because reading is job one up north. The only true sounds in the Huron National Forest come from nature. From the blue jays and the chickadees, the phoebes and the woodpeckers, the chattering of chipmunks, the rustle of wind in the leaves and the regular rippling of Big Creek as it makes its way to the Au Sable a mile or so away.

In the rapidly dwindling space that remains, there must go several other basics necessary for survival in “God’s Country,” so-called by a sign outside Ma Deeter’s log cabin eatery and drinkery. Like sheets and pillow cases for the main and guest cabins, a decent assortment of slightly worn summer clothes that no longer pass muster at home (Oh, how lovely even those are going to feel after our long, long winter.) and plenty of rain and hiking gear: boots, poles, jackets and such.

Then there’s the food and drink. In order to do our part for the local economy, we only schlep the stuff not normally available at the local supermarket or the nearby Amish country store: Smoked paprika, capers, rice wine vinegar. Our favorite Columbian coffee. A big bottle of extra virgin olive oil and a couple of cases of cheap, drinkable wine.

And, because northern Michigan has such a short growing season, we’ll also cold-case a selection of fresh vegetables to tide us over until the backyard garden ladies show up at the local produce market with their baskets of baby beets and rhubarb, green onions and home-grown lettuces.

And finally, because some of us still have to work to travel (rather than travel to work) we’ll pack a bunch of  business things like files, guide books and magazines and a trusty Apple notebook for the columns, the Googles … and all those reader e-mails.

Contrast all that with the minimalist clobber we’ll take on an impending three-week trip to England and Scotland, where absolutely everything we could ever need will have to fit into our respective 22-inch carry-ons, an Eagle Creek wheelie and a Rick Steves convertible backpack (Can you guess who carries which one? Maybe not). We’ll also have daypacks, of course, to take on the plane with the extra bits and bobs. For the camera and the iPod, the meds, the toothbrush and the spare just-in-case underwear.

The trip will start serenely enough with a 10-day stay in the London literary village of Hampstead for some sightseeing, nostalgia and family affairs. Then it goes into overdrive heading north. And norther, to Scotland and its upper reaches.

You’ll be hearing from us along the way, God willing and the wee bairns don’t rise …

E-mail travel columnists Roger Holliday and Claudia Fischer at RogerHolliday@wcnet.org.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Arts and Life, Holliday Travels.
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