Our annual summer vacation has been in the works for months, making campsite reservations and studying maps. This year we’re doing a repeat of a vacation we took back in 2020: driving the more than one-thousand-mile perimeter of Lake Michigan in our teardrop camper, but with two huge differences: This time, there is no global pandemic going on to close down many tourist attractions, nor are our four children accompanying us. It is me, my husband, and our dog.
As we packed up the camper, our neighbor came out to tell us that there were Canadian wildfires that might affect air quality on our trip. His alarmist message, as we stood under a nearly cloudless blue sky, didn’t really sink in. I was skeptical. I gave it very little thought, then promptly forgot about it.
We began our clockwise trek: north through Wisconsin, up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, then down the western coast of Michigan. Almost immediately, just over the Wisconsin border, the smoke from the Canadian wildfires reached us: the sky became hazy, and our eyes and throats burned with the acrid smell of smoke. The sun seemed to hang stagnant in the sky, a glowing orange ball that tried its best to break through the smoky atmosphere, but couldn’t. Air quality maps showed that the highest concentration of smoke pollution would hover like a shroud, clinging to the shoreline, as if the fires were privy to our itinerary. On the first night, we sat in our camper, windows closed tightly to keep the stinking air at bay, and we pored over maps and forecasts to weigh our options. The lake, only a few yards from our campsite, appeared as a shapeless gray mass — it looked less like a lake and more like a lifeless slab of concrete.
It was too heartbreaking. We had looked forward to this trip for so long. Could it be over before it even began? We talked about alternatives: head home, pretend to be out of town, and design an impromptu staycation? Head in a new direction away from the hazardous air quality, and hope to find open spots during the busiest camping season? Ultimately, we couldn’t pull the plug on it. We decided to “stick to the plan.”
“Stick to the plan” has come in handy quite a few times in our lifetime. In parenting alone, “stick to the plan” is usually the best response in the face of temper tantrums, diaper blowouts, stomach viruses, lost permissions slips, and moody teens. This trip has had big and small moments. I’m channeling my inner Dorothy Gale, feeling stranded in her sepia-toned Kansas world, until she steps out her door to adventure in a technicolor Land of Oz. The Lollipop Guild themselves couldn’t make the gradual disappearance of the smoke more exciting. I yelped out with joy on Day 3 when I saw a small patch of blue sky overhead. Progress! It wasn’t until Day 4 when saw the sharp line of a horizon across water that appeared blue, not gray. Our eyes and throat no longer burned. Hallelujah.
The plan includes some big outings, namely exploring the beach and the sand dunes, as well as boarding the ferry to Mackinac Island, transporting us from the mainland to the quaint Michigan town where cars are left behind and traded for bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. The smaller, unplanned moments come in the form of friendly conversations with strangers, or an especially delicious glass of cold lemonade after a hot and sweaty hike. We found a nearly empty beach where we launched our kayaks for a sunset paddle. We even happened to come upon a mother duck marching her flock of fuzzy ducklings, one by one in a straight line, into the water. No matter how you slice it, it’s all vacation, including the way our poor dog wedged himself beneath my knees late last night, trembling at the sound of thunder and rain hitting the camper’s roof. Now the smoke from the Canadian wildfires is also baked into this vacation, for better or for worse.
Moments of indecision rear their heads at our jobs, and in our relationships, too, threatening to dismantle a carefully constructed blueprint. Someone should embroider it on a pillow in a curlicue font: Whenever you can, stick to the plan.
“Stick to the plan” is the real-life equivalent to “the show must go on,” I suppose. When unexpected things threaten to muck things up, it feels as though the only thing to do is throw our hands in the air and admit defeat.
Or … we pause, put our heads down and move forward with what we originally set out to do. Thank goodness we didn’t abort this mission. Thank goodness we stayed on the road and didn’t turn back. It’s not exactly the vacation we planned, but it is vacation, so I’ll take it. On with the show, even if the show turns out a little differently than it was written.
