Every summer when I was a child, our family would hightail it to the north woods as soon as my parents were done grading papers. We’d have weeks upon weeks of sand, water, trees, jigsaws, picnics, reading and reading and reading. Then the drive back to hot, noisy Detroit a day or two before the Labor Day BBQ with my parents’ socialist auto worker comrades and their families. All this time later, I remember the taste of the smoky tender sweet ribs that Effie made. That’s when summer was over.

Once I grew up, I wasn’t able to spend entire summers up there. I lived too far away, couldn’t take off work, couldn’t afford it, didn’t like how white the town, how white the summer people. But this summer was the first time in about half a century that I was there for two whole months. One of the reasons for the long stretch was that there was interest in my book The Copper Stone. Librarians I met a decade ago remembered me and invited me back to meet with their book clubs. I was given access to two archives and did some location scouting for a novel I’ve been thinking about. I was on an incredible panel. I got to talk with readers, writers, teachers, and historians about my work, their work, healing, art, justice, and this world of ours. Deep conversations were made possible by talented facilitators. And I got to be with family that I don’t get to see enough of. It was a full and rewarding time.

You can’t do everything. I didn’t get enough time with friends up there and I didn’t get a lot of pages written with all the hubbub. So now I’m all a-scribble in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos with the junipers and the magpies and the black bears who are bulking up for the cold weather if it ever gets cold enough. Like the bears, I’m digging and taking in. Unearthing a buried story. Sniffing the trail.

As you may know, my honey and I like to drive all over America, so here’s a little sampler of stuff we did in different places in our beautiful tarnished nation.