Same old same old
a love letter to the North Shore
This past week I went to my favorite place in the whole world. I’m usually the person who wants to go to a new place I’ve never been before, whether it’s a new restaurant or a new country. I love to travel. Learning a new language and culture brings me life in a way few things can. I love to explore.
But my favorite place in the world isn’t the most exotic island I’ve been to or a place that requires 14+ hours of flying. It’s 2 hours away from where I grew up.
Northern Minnesota, specifically the North Shore of Lake Superior.
I have some of my favorite memories there. When I was little, I used to hear about how my Grandparents would go up to the North Shore throughout the seasons. My first time was when I was 16, snowmobiling with my dad. We had a cozy room filled with wooden trim and a picture frame window. When you sat by the window sill you could feel the crash and roar of the waves all while watching your coffee cup steam and hearing the fire crackle a few steps away. We put on over 100 miles on the trails, finding all the best hamburger joints with guys who wear raccoon hats and special cubbies just to place your snowmobile helmets while you eat. I ran into a tree and we hiked in the deep snow. It was magical.
The next summer I went on my first camping trip with a group of friends. We hiked through mud up to our knees, cliff-jumped off waterfalls, and crammed too many people into the trunk of the minivan. I woke up each day to make the fire while my friend percolated the coffee. We laughed and sang and made deep-fried oreos over the fire. One of my friends introduced me to my favorite artist that trip. I’ll never forget sitting in the trunk of a van listening to Time by John Lucas for the first time. Lake Superior, bright and blue, sparkled at me as if to mimic the lyrics, “The beauty that has come, and the beauty yet to come…by the king who paints beauty with time.”
Since then, I’ve gone up for day trips to black-sand beaches and annual camping trips to catch the fall colors. I camped near the Canadian border with my friend and we hiked the tallest point in Minnesota, hopping from log to log to the summit (if you can call it that). My friend made me listen to the whole Delta album by Mumford & Sons and still to this day I listen to it everytime I’m there, driving south from Duluth.
I bundled up my Californian roommates up the shore for their birthday in the middle of January and will never forget my first trip to Bean and Bear Lake when it was perfectly peak color and we packed Trader Joe's fall-flavored food. It was practically heaven and it will always feel like a dream.
A summer later I hiked 120 miles of the Superior Hiking Trail with a friend I hardly knew and she taught me how to do a handstand. I learned how to cook over the fire after running out of fuel, and we had the best Spanish rice of our lives. By the end, I became so comfortable in the woods by day 10 that I did a solo Boundary Waters trip the next year.
For New Year’s, a group of us went up to a yurt in Finland Minnesota in -40 degrees and we somehow managed to survive the night. We played cribbage at the bar and drank the cheapest beer you’ll ever find. Somehow a random local resident ended up at the yurt at 4 AM to try to help us warm up and the owner was surprised we made it through the night. My friends never again wanted to go camping with me but we still laugh when we talk about it.
One of my best friends flew in from New Mexico and I took her to the charming city of Grand Marais, picnicing at a pink beach along the way. We stayed in a hostel, watching the stars with strangers, eating frybread tacos, and picking fresh raspberries from the bushes along the trail.
Another time I stayed in a hostel in Duluth where we stayed up til midnight talking to New Agers about Jesus and they asked us to pray for their demons. (A whole other story for a whole other time). We went to the sauna, stopped at our favorite Swedish coffee shop, played a whole lot of cribbage, made farm-fresh eggs, and camped the next night along the river, sipping lots of warm tea.
This last summer I hiked one of my favorite sections of the trail and found out I am no longer immune to mosquitos. We hid in the tent and tried not to itch our red, swollen legs, regretful that we didn’t pack bug spray even though we were seasoned backpackers. We were so tired one of the days after hiking in the pouring rain that we passed out for a nap with no sleeping pads and then talked til midnight til we finally fell asleep again.
I have dozens more memories that I could share. These only scratch the surface.
Every time I return, I’m flooded with all my memories and yet new ones find their way into my nostalgia.
There’s something I can’t explain about returning to a place you love over and over, creating new memories, and relishing in the old ones. It’s like a favorite song or family recipe. There are 150 miles of shoreline to hike and discover, no shortage of new things to do, and memories to make. Yet, at the same time, I almost always will go to Fika Coffee if I make it past Lutsen and will want Hungry Hippie Tacos if I’m in Grand Marais or Duluth. I will want to stop at Tobies to get my Dad a cinnamon roll on the way home and will almost always take a bathroom break at Gooseberry Falls.
You’d think my favorite place would be somewhere far away and warm, lined with sunshine and beaches and saltwater. And while I love those places too, they’re not the same as the North Shore. They aren’t filled with hundreds of memories and yearly traditions. I can’t go to them on a spur-of-the-moment day trip when I have the day off or find a camping spot without a reservation.
What’s amazing to me is that amidst all the same old same old, each time is so new. The colors, seasons, smells, and water temperature all contribute to a different experience every single time. It’s always cozy, always beautiful, and always peaceful, even in -40° or pouring rain or mosquitos. I never know what to expect and yet at the same time, some things just don’t change.
Rest and peace, joy and excitement, enchantment and adventure are just two hours away. And I’m content.
This week I took two new friends who weren’t from Minnesota. We stopped in Duluth and walked to the lighthouse. I walked through the stores and showed them how to layer with wool socks and long underwear and how to pick out a down coat warm enough to help them survive winter.
We stopped at one of my favorite coffee shops in the woods and hiked one of the most classic trails in Northern Minnesota: Bean and Bear Lake.
It was perfect, hardly past the peak of color. The reds, yellows, and oranges were still astounding. There’s nothing quite like seeing your first red maple, bright in the sunlight. I enjoyed watching their reaction as we walked for 7 miles through the forest and out toward the overlooks. It was a type of special I can’t explain to take them to a place that had so enchanted my heart and soul and to watch them fall in love with it too.
The oranges were the most vibrant I’d seen in a few years, and even though I’ve experienced fall on the North Shore many times now, I was still delighted. The contrast of the lake and the colors was gorgeous and the evergreens seemed to be peaking their heads out as if to remind me all over again how much I love it.
The North Shore will forever hold my heart.
There’s a secret with the same old same old. If you learn to stop and savor it, it really never gets old.
For the One,
P.S. What about you? Do you have a favorite place you go to that you never seem to get tired of?