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Logging Miles Making Friends
 This
picture of me hanging out with a few friends along the Sault Ste.
Marie, Ontario, riverfront walkway always makes me wriggle in my chair.
It’s not the proximity to a family of bears (they’re not real) that
gives me the fidgets. It’s the idea that I should be traveling around
the lake somewhere … soon.
As a descendant of both Vikings and Voyageurs, I figure my
constant wanderlust is a genetic mutation. Childhood environment, to
give those in that camp their due, contributed. A port city entices a
child with ample occasions to see other people coming and going. (I
wonder how I get on those boats.) Living near the airport with the
regular roar of some plane overhead didn’t help. (I wonder how I get on
those airplanes.) And then there were those family vacations … kids and
caboodle crammed into a Chevy station wagon traveling out Week 1 then
back Week 2 with frequent stops at natural wonders, historic monuments
and large plaster animals along the roadside. (I wonder how I get to
sit in the front seat away from my brother).
Spring and fall especially bring out deliciously unbearable
“flight” instincts, no doubt it’s an internal migratory pattern … which
in me urges “Go North.” Even intriguing street names spark my
Voyageuristic curiosity. I fully intend to travel Short Cut Road, which
veers up and off of Highway 35 south of Superior, Wisconsin. Just what
is it a shortcut from or to?
My love of travel may relate to past experiences. On long or
short journeys I seem to encounter exactly the same thing: Friendly,
fascinating people. Once I went across an ocean to meet people from
“home.” It was when, as a young vagabond visiting Germany, I found
myself at the end of a long travel day on a large rock outside a youth
hostel in a castle high above the Rhine River with nothing to eat.
Feeling just a little sorry for myself, I suddenly heard singing, in
English, getting closer. Soon I met a group of picnickers … from
Cloquet, Minnesota. That’s Mmmminnesota.
Reasonable people might fight those ancestral inclinations to
head out for elsewhere. Reasonable people don’t know what they’re
missing. As a “grown up,” I realize now that I am not alone in my
passion for exploring and traveling. In fact, I can be a member of a
club thanks to our new Lake Superior Circle Tour Club. With free
membership (this is my kind of club!), comes a Circle Tour window
sticker, a certificate of circular accomplishment and a chance to tell
my travel stories to others on our Website at www.lakesuperior.com.
(You’ll find more details in this issue.)
So when those spring migration instincts inspire you,
surrender to them. Start planning now for your trip to or around the
lake. If you already live here, consider a little jaunt up or down or
to the side of you. I guarantee that you’ll meet lots of nice folks …
and maybe see a few real bears.
Konnie LeMay
Editor
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