The 4th, Up North
Very high levels of consumption. Food, drinks, books, you name it, we went for it.
Here’s the thing about living in Northern Michigan - there’s this like, culture, about going “up north” for the weekend and especially holiday weekends. Fridays at around 6pm, every northbound lane of 131 or 75 or even 66 is a GD gridlock of campers heading to the fingers of the mitten. Now, we’re not all in agreement about where exactly “up north” begins, I’d say that scales anywhere from Newaygo to Copper Harbor, but I live somewhere in the middle of that, decidedly “Up North” indeed.
Which is a long winded way to say that people generally descend on my home for long weekends. My husband and I are the “up north” family and we’ll almost always have a houseful for the holiday. This year though, COVID (is that still a thing?!), work and other whatnot left us home alone for the first time in literally eleven years on the 4th of July. And listen, I was not bothered. Free to do whatever I want for FOUR DAYS without hosting? Don’t mind if I do.
I have been checked out since Wednesday, when I dutifully logged into work, but since everyone else was checked out too, mostly just stared at an empty inbox. I waited for my boss to tell us we could leave early. That turkey did not release us, but snuck out around 3pm, so it was basically a free-for-all for a couple hours while we waited for 5pm to clock the fuck out. Which I did, promptly. Snapped that laptop shut, grabbed my kiddo and headed straight to the beach.
Glad I did too, because the weather was pretty iffy for the rest of the weekend. Lots of gloomy mornings, some rain, and since I’m an optimist, running to car to sit out the sprinkles that inevitably turned into full scale thunderstorms. I think I took a nap every single day though and had lots of time to read. In a fun twist, I spent my weekend reading about the British monarchy, the people you know, we celebrate becoming independent from this weekend. Ha!
A couple years ago, I was so vaguely aware of the royal family. I mean, of course I knew who they were but I didn’t really care. Then I got obsessed with The Crown. So I read a biography about the Queen. Then a couple books about Diana. And I got into the Harry and Meghan drama. I read Spare, and Endgame, and countless Daily Mail articles (trash). I grabbed a biography about Charles from the library right before the long weekend and I’ll just say that I can hardly put it down. The author, Sally Bedell Smith, is one of the best in the business. It’s not saccharine, but it’s also not one-sided or mean. Just good, steady facts written in an engaging way.
We headed down to our little beach town on the afternoon of the fourth, and it was packed to the gills of course, but we slipped down during a little pocket after it rained, so I think a lot of people were inside and it wasn’t too crazy.
Other than that, we putzed around at home, enjoying bonfires on the patio and setting up the projector to watch Bluey on the deck. Everything is better outside, even Bluey.
