Without Reservation

        “How far are you headed?” Kurt asked as we stood on the shore of the Mississippi River watching a snake consume a frog.
        “We’re hoping to make Nebraska tonight…” I looked at my watch: 2:30. The drive across Iowa would take nearly six hours. Add a dinner stop, and we’d be lucky to make it by 9:30. Still we lingered over conversation with our new acquaintance. He was heading back to Western Mass and knew and loved the west where we were headed. His boys free-ranged along the shore circling back to slide treasures into his pockets - a hookless lure, a stone - or to show him a prize - a frog held tightly in cupped hands. We exchanged contact information and pulled ourselves away by 3.
        After dinner and the obligatory half-mile walk in Hardin County, Iowa, we pushed on as dark fell trying to reach our destination. We drove through a wind farm indicated only by a ghostly horizon of blinking lights now in synch now at random and pulled into sleepy Moville for gas. Then onward.
        It was after ten by the time we reached Ponca State Park. Phoebe, still buckled, lay curled in the back seat. At each road juncture arrows for “primitive camping” pointed in both directions. We followed the meandering road until we found ourselves back at the entrance, laughed, and plunged back in picking a site we hoped was open and quiet and pitching our tent by headlamp.
       We woke under a canopy of birdsong surrounded by green and unfurled slowly. A four-hundred year-old oak tree had drawn us to Ponca, and we were eager to see it but reluctant to pack up and resume our drive afterwards. We headed up to the visitor’s center to pay, poked through the shop, and ambled through the interactive displays of life on the Missouri River. Mike scanned the trail maps.
        “There’s a ranger program at one on water testing and sampling aquatic invertebrates” I offered.
       Mike looked up, hopeful, “want to stay another day?”
       I grinned, “I was thinking the same thing.” We hiked out to the old oak tree and sat with it for a while, we netted for dragonflies and lunged for frogs that slipped through our fingers. In the afternoon heat, we settled by the river in the shade. Trolling the shore, Phoebe found an old plank and a stick. She tested her balance in the shallows then in knee-deep water on her “paddle board” using the stick as a paddle. We cooked dinner by the river as the sun set through the summer haze. In the morning we’d head for Wyoming.

        The push to reach Ponka had meant a long night and a tired morning. While part of me longed to forge ahead, we had needed the rest and relished in the opportunity to play. I find that sometimes I get so caught up in the plan that even if something spontaneous occurs, I’m looking ahead at what should happen, and I miss what is happening. It takes the concentration of prowling for dragonflies or the slack-jawed awe of Phoebe’s creativity to pull me into the moment. I’m not proud of that; I’d like to be more flexible so that I can shift from how I think things ought to be to the way things are. My grip on our itinerary slowly softened as we crossed Nebraska.

        Mike turned off the road, and I looked at my watch. I felt Wyoming slipping away.
        “Just a quick stop,” he said. “I wanna check it out.” He turned again, into the entrance of Long Pine State Recreation Area
        “Should we pay? Our pass expired.”
        “Nobody checks these places - we’ll only be here for a minute,” he said, putting me off. The campground appeared deserted. Mike pulled into a site, turned off the engine and stepped out, melding into the trees, his voice traveled back to the truck, “Ponderosa and Burr Oaks!”
        “Mama, I have to pee,” Phoebe announced from the back seat. I sighed, unbuckled and got out. Heat hit my face like a wall. It filled my nostrils and mouth, making me gasp. Phoebe clambered out behind me. I walked over to a pine and buried my nose in its bark inhaling deeply. I breathed in again, gathering the sweet scent of warm vanilla that I’d last smelled in Arizona. While the burr oaks still had us anchored in the east, the pines showed we’d reached the west. Maybe we were further along in our journey than I realized. I started to let go.
        Mike wandered back. We piled into the truck and headed around the campground loop, winding down hill and into a small parking lot. A few sites were occupied along the creek that surged through the valley.     

        “Let’s check it out!” Mike pulled into the lot and stopped to check his phone. Phoebe and I wandered down to the creek, my thoughts still on our next stop - the promise of bison, and dinner, and an unknown destination for the night.
        “Can I go in?” Phoebe asked
        “Sure,” I shrugged. She sat down and pulled off her shoes and socks, rolled the waistband of her skirt to make it shorter, and stepped in. She jumped out, howling. “What is it?!” I asked.
        “It’s coooollllld.” It couldn’t be that bad. Curious, I followed suit, toeing off my sandals and stepping in. Instantly my feet ached. This water felt like it was coming off a glacier.
        Mike came running down and plunged in without reservation. Wet to the waist, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the bank. Without a word he headed upstream until he was out of sight around a bend. He came back into view, eyes gleaming, arms crossed on his chest, toes sticking out of the water, floating on the current. Meanwhile, Phoebe and I had edged into the shallows. The force of the heat pushed us to find relief in the spring-fed water.
        “I wanna do that.” Phoebe looked back at me for permission.
        “Go ahead,” I said, sitting on a rock and stretching my legs out under the water. The current pushed at my skin, washing away the sweat and stagnancy of travel and eroding my grasp on time. I relaxed.
        “But I’m not wearing my bathing suit”
        “You’ll dry,” I smiled. “Go for it.”
        She splashed over to Mike with the air of someone who has gotten away with something. As Phoebe and Mike appeared around the bend laughing, I got up to join them. We found the deepest and shallowest areas, buried our feet in the sand, and let the current pull us downstream.
        “We should probably head out,” Mike announced.
        “We could stay,” I said half-teasing and suddenly reluctant to abandon the creek for the heat and the road.
        He laughed, “We’re never going to get to Wyoming. Come on. Let’s go.” Something shifted in the moments of spontaneous joy. We could have driven right by and missed this small oasis. Perhaps getting to our destination was less important than enjoying the journey. I relaxed into the idea of our trip as it was, without reservations to anchor us, rather than the one we’d conceived of as we poured over maps at the dining room table.
        We toweled off and glanced at our clothes, which were already drying in the heat. As we pulled on seat belts and wound back out to Route 20, I wondered what adventure we’d find next. It came a few hours later as we stood gazing out over a valley and watching bison as the sun set.


“There’s the moon,” I said, watching the disk slide above the horizon. The wind had risen as the sun set, and it funneled into the scoops of my ears making it hard to hear. I turned for a last look at the bison grazing in the valley below. It was almost too dark to see.
        “I want a turn, Mama.” Phoebe reached for my binoculars, and I slipped the strap around her neck. She lifted her gaze to the moon. We watched, breaths held until we could see its whole face, and then we turned to go.
        We’d lingered willingly at Niobrara Wildlife Refuge, cooking mac and cheese on our one-burner stove down by the river. Phoebe and I waded in the ankle-deep, tepid water sending sand particles down river to the Missouri and then the Mississippi Rivers where we’d been only days before. A spring fed creek cut in, and we giggled at the cold water coursing over our toes, wondering at the difference in temperature.
        “Want to paddle?” Mike asked from the shore.
        “How long is it?”
        “The whole river is over 550 miles, but the Wild and Scenic section is about 75. We could do it in four days.”
       I laughed then realized he was serious. “What did you do this summer?” I asked in spite of myself, “We went to Nebraska.”
        Mike smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Maybe you’ll let me come back and do it someday. It’s a really cool river.” I felt bad for not taking him seriously, but shook my head anyway. Four days on the river would seriously change the scope of our vacation.
        A family came down the path, their two young boys poured into the water as mom and dad watched from the bank. We exchanged smiles and picked up a conversation. He worked for Cabela’s as a guide. Tomorrow he’d be taking a busman’s holiday to go tubing on the river with his family. My eyes met Mike’s. Huh. Maybe this was a compromise, the next adventure in the offering.
        “What outfitter are you using?” Mike asked
        “Brewers,” he responded, “I looked up a bunch of them and these guys had the best reviews. They seem pretty reliable.” We waved goodbye as they headed up the trail and back to the parking lot. We settled in on logs by the water and ate, chewing, as well, on our plans for tomorrow. Our plans to carry on another three hours after dinner slid downstream with the current. Tubing tomorrow meant staying here tonight.
        Back at the truck, we found a nearby state park on the map and traced the next day’s route, estimating how far we’d get after a half-day on the river. We headed out as dark gathered around us, and I pulled out my phone to reserve the next day’s tubing trip. We paused to take a last look for bison and see the full moon rise.
        The next morning, we learned that our campground was home to Nebraska’s largest waterfall: Smith Falls. With time to spare before our bus, we decided to check it out. As we poked around for the trailhead, we ran into a father and his two kids.
        “Looking for the waterfall? The trail’s down that way. We did it yesterday. It’s pretty flat, definitely OK in flip flops,” he said, looking at our feet. He was wearing a Teton Science School tee-shirt, a place two of my dear friends had worked. As we chatted, we learned we had several mutual friends. He’d lived in New York and was now living outside Jackson, Wyoming but traveled back to visit friends and family in Lake Placid. “Where are you headed?” he asked.
        “Wyoming. Colorado, eventually,” Mike responded, “But we seem to have gotten stuck in Nebraska.” Mike looked chagrined.
        Reed rubbed the back of his neck and looked up, “Yep. Nebraska can surprise you sometimes.” Indeed. Nebraska had surprised us, pulling us in and holding us fast with its subtle beauty. We thanked him and headed down the trail toward the Falls.

        Being present is like taking a photograph without a camera, letting, as Annie Dillard writes, “my own shutter open, and the moment’s light [print] on my own silver gut.”* My memories are sharper, clearer, when I’m fully there. Being present is a way to slow time, to keep that “before you know it” from happening, because when I’m fully present I do know what’s happening around me. Time doesn’t pass me by. I relaxed into the current of our journey, letting it pull us where it would. And so we headed onward, without reservation.



*Annie Dillard, “Seeing” from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Counting States

“And I’ve peed in 42 states” Jodi announced.

“You what?!” The obligatory two-truths-and-a-lie ice breaker detoured into a discussion: how do you count the states you’ve been in? According to my dad, driving through a state counts but going through an airport doesn’t. Is driving through sufficient, or do you have to get out? Do you have to spend the night? For Jodi, it counted if she peed there. 

Just south of Chicago, we pulled off I-90 onto Route 53 arrowing south between corn and soy fields in search of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. Headed into day three of a three-week road trip, we needed to wiggle. My daughter began her chant from the back seat “Labuuuu, labuuuuu,” her invented word for “I need to get out of the truck, now!” What if, in order for a state to count, you have to walk—get out of the car? Enough to stretch your legs and see something beyond the highway. What if you had to walk a half-mile? 

The states on our route are not new to me. I’ve peed in all of them - many I’ve hiked or camped in. But on this trip, I’m seeing the route again through the eyes of my daughter. I catalogued our stops. In Pennsylvania, a state my daughter had traveled before to visit her Poppa, and where I’d grown up, we stopped to see Lake Erie at Presque Isle State Park. We strolled along the water’s edge stopping to collect stones, dance away from the waves then plunge in up to our knees. We paused to gaze out across this improbable expanse of fresh water. 

I had once joined a pilgrimage to consecrate this lake. For days, I’d watched a sand mandala kaleidoscope into being. The monks, hunched over the table ratcheted colored sands from a narrow chack-pur, a hollow tube with notches along one side which they grated or tapped to position the sand. Then, in an instant, a monk swiped the completed mandala with a brush. Nothing is permanent. They gathered the sand and processed to the lake. There, the deep tones of the dungchen reverberated across the water. The monks, in saffron robes, stood along the industrial wharf chanting as they poured the consecrated sand into the lake. A few particles swirled on the surface and the rest roiled into the murky water. Twenty-four years later, we waded in the same sacred lake. 

We had sped by Cleveland and turned south at Toledo to stroll along the Springbrook trail, a mile-long loop through the Oak Openings Metropark, where the trees and birds were as familiar to us as those around home. Ohio.

We had spent two nights in Indiana exploring Indiana Dunes National Park and the shore of Lake Michigan, weaving out through the dunes past common hop plant and jack pines to the lake. But was that really Indiana? Our exploration of Indiana was equally as reminiscent of Cape Cod and entirely different from the deciduous forests of the south or the corn fields in the state’s center. When can we say we’ve been in a place? Perhaps these half-mile walks revealed the wizard behind the curtain: the artificial construct of “state” is as “place.”

In an interview with Sean Elder, poet and bioregionalist Gary Snyder explains thinking in terms of watersheds rather than political boundaries, “Watersheds are not arbitrary; they have been shaped by the land itself, the play of the ridges and streams, whereas boundaries that are on the map, especially in North America are arbitrary lines drawn with a ruler, often by people who had no idea where they were.” I grappled with labeling these places. State lines are deeply etched in our vernacular. But Snyder’s thinking has long shaped my idea of place as well.  

We had driven up to New Buffalo, Michigan for dinner then walked out past the yacht basin and condos to the beach. The morning’s placid water had been riled by the wind. Even standing back, we soon wore a fine mist. The waves tossed and seethed. But this half-mile walk was only thirty miles up the lakeshore from where we’d walked earlier in the day - a new state, but the same Lake Michigan watershed. Our half-miles provided a snapshot in time as well as place.

We stepped out of the truck, stretched, grabbed granola bars, sun hats and binoculars. At the pasture gate, we stepped into a fold of fence and pulled the gate across. Phoebe stopped to try the gate herself, working out the mechanics of it. “The bison can’t get through here - but we can!” She walked into the pasture, and we ogled at bison tracks and “plop.” We scanned the horizon and shade trees for the creatures without luck. An indigo bunting sang it’s doubled notes from a phone line. It was time to take a walk and see this moment, this half-mile of Illinois. In the Illinois River watershed. Time to check off another state.