It is three o’clock on a deceptively sunny Wisconsin afternoon, and I am sitting on a rock at the edge of Devil’s Lake with a lit American Spirit in one shaky hand and a can of Coors in the other. The skies directly above the lake have cleared and the brilliant post-thunderstorm sunlight is bouncing off the glassy surface of the lake. Just offshore, an assembly of hungry mallards dives for tiny fishes, stirred to the surface by the frenzied rain.
A crack of thunder draws my attention to the bluffs high above the west side of the lake, from which we have just descended. I count—one, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand—until I get to ten. Lightning flashes in the distance; the storm has retreated and we are, for the moment, safe.
Continue reading “Adventures in Quartzite: A dirtbag’s visit to Devil’s Lake”
my alaskan odyssey 