WE WERE CLOSE

We drove an hour today, one hour to go back fifty years in my history, 130 years in America’s history.
We traveled from our camp to the town of Elk Rapids, one hour away.

Many of the storefronts and homes bore oval markers dating them from the late 19th Century.

We love it.

One home was dated 1876, the year of the Custer wipeout at Little Big Horn.
Other dates, 1883 and 1871, I could couple with an event if I did a little work.

And this town was close to a bay front cabin I used to visit half a century ago.
We went in search of that cabin, the past.

And we got close.

Sophie was along.

We left her in the car when we ate lunch, lunch in what had been reincarnated from 1920’s repair garage to antique emporium to its present incarnation as that of upscale restaurant.

Food was superb. Wait staff knowledgeable, efficient, and beautiful.

Hostess knew of certain clues to the property we wanted to visit and gave us directions.

But before the setting out, there was Sophie to walk.

She wanted to go into every open door, to sniff every post and wall and bit of grass.

The fudge shop invited us all in, Sophie included.

Same for the post office as we bought stamps.

It is hard to like folks who do not like your dog.
We liked these folks.

And the postmistress gave us additional directions regarding our quest.

Anyway, back to the car and off we went.

We followed the advice of the postmistress first.

It was close to town, did not seem likely, but was so close.

Did not feel right. Was not right.

It was time to try the advice of the hostess.

The only name I remembered from the early days was that of a cluster of tourist cabins, Kay and Ray’s Cabins. The hostess remembered them, or thought she did.
She made her guess and now we took her directions. She said look for a road named Yuba.

Two roads ahead, and the first was named Kay Ray Road.

How about that? It was too good not to give it a looksee.

We were close. The water was on the left and the driveways and geography looked right…but not quite.

But we were close.

Back to the main highway, and past the other road named…Yuba, the name she had actually said to look for.

We drove past it. It was late. We had an hour drive ahead of us. We drove and then began to have second thoughts.

We now believe that was the one.

Hostess had said she thought the Kay Ray cabins had been razed and replaced by a park.
And Mary Kay had seen a park sign pointing up this little road.

We were by than half way back home.

And the plan to follow if the park was the site of the Cabins occurred to me only then.
If I had had the idea just a bit sooner we might have spent the additional time required.

Next time we try to find our place, we will drive up, or down this road to the park.
We will walk into the park and look to see if the Bay is in front of us.

If it is, we will walk down to the water and turn right, walking along the shore. Private property or not, in Michigan, along Great Lakes water, the part of the beach at the water is public land.

Anyway, the plan is to walk for about 20 minutes or so until something looks familiar.

Even if the cabin is gone, I should be able to recognize the lay of the land.

If nothing works, we will have tried.

We will have been close.

We will have touched a little part of my, even our, past.