I’ve been camping and doing nothing in particular in northern Minnesota for the last week.  It’s been a long time since I’ve travelled without a plan or itinerary and it feels really refreshing.  I have a pretty low key life in general, but it often feels clenched and tight like a balled fist.  What a relief it is to let everything go.

I love the sense of freedom on the road.  An alternate reality presents itself.  I quickly forget about checking emails or responding to calls and messages, and then I feel foolish for thinking those things were so important in the first place.   Let’s face it, life will go on without me, whether it’s for one week or the rest of eternity.

Lake Superior is something to behold.  Its vastness seems to have cracked something open inside me.  When I first saw it, I felt relaxed for the first time in weeks.  The breeze swept through me and hollowed me out, sweeping my tension over the expansive horizon.

If you like quiet and solitude (yes, please!), northern Minnesota is the place to go.  In just about an hour from Duluth, you can be in a fairytale forest where the earth is sprinkled with lakes and fields of wildflowers bow deeply with respect to the wind.  Nothing seems crowded.  Everything seems mellow.  Wolves still prowl the land.  Loons cry out into the crispy sky.  Baubles of red bunch berries and plump blue orchid fruit carpet the forest floor beneath boughs of evergreens.  Somethings still feels wild here, slow, and perhaps a bit old fashioned.  It’s a place you can come to be with your thoughts or to let them escape into the wind.