Summer Solstice Meditations

 The winter solstice is a big deal, or at least it can be imagined to be. The sun had been retreating, day after day, but now it seems to be returning. That's great! On the longest night of the year, it makes good sense to gather together around a fire of some sort.

The summer solstice has less of a claim to the imagination, though in this epoch of climate change, perhaps we should all celebrate the fact that the sunlight will grow less prolonged and severe.

Hilary and I decided to celebrate this less-than-staggering astronomical event with an overnight trip to Myre-Big Island State Park, a few miles from the Iowa border, near Albert Lea. Not many people go there mid-week, and even fewer, I suspect, when the temperature hits 90 degrees.

An added deterrent was the predicted level of "ground-level ozone," something I'd never heard of. Evidently the combination of sunny skies, warm temperatures, and low humidity creates an environment conducive to a reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, the result being a dramatic increase in ground-level ozone. The warning I read advised "children and older adults, and people who are active outdoors" to avoid prolonged or heavy outdoor exertion. Like hiking?

I had always imagined ozone to be a thin, wispy gas, way up in the stratosphere, protecting us from various harmful forms of solar radiation. I don't see what purpose it serves down here on the ground.

For whatever reason, our favorite campsite (#52) was available, with no other site reserved for several hundred yards. And the park is only ninety minutes by freeway down the lovely Bemis Moraine from Minneapolis. So we went.

Myre-Big Island is a grand and curious park, with at least four distinct areas of natural interest. The oddest thing about it is that it wraps itself around a large lake that can be seen from many vantage points, yet the lake itself has little recreational value. Cool breezes blow across it. Pelicans and cormorants drift here and there. Deer drink on the shore near herons and egrets poised to feed on passing minnows. But no one swims in it, and there are precious few boats around. Which is good.

Our plan was to hike the shady, marshy trails in the southwest corner of the park during the afternoon heat, and hike the Pelican Trail across the high, open fields the next morning when heat (and ozone?) would be low.

What one notices on such rambles is the beauty of the grassy, rolling hills covered with golden alexander, and the shady woods full of well-spaced burr oaks and walnut trees. 

The sumac fruit is still green and succulent. The migrant birds have gone north, and the songs and chirps of the same few species assault the ears again and again: common yellowthroat, redstart, yellow warbler, red-eyed vireo, field sparrow, catbird. To be surprised by the slurpy call of the indigo bunting, the buzz-buzz of the clay-colored sparrow, or the irritated chatter of the house wren was always a treat.

For every bird we saw, we heard twenty.

The heat of the day persisted into evening, and we decided not to put the rain-fly on the tent. This would allow such breezes as there were to flow through it, and it would also make it possible to see the stars through the mosquito netting in the roof.  This can be a great experience, not only for its poetic effect, but also because one tends to wake up frequently during the night when sleeping on the ground, and the movement of the stars reminds us that time is passing and the discomforts of the night won't last forever.

Yet I have to admit that on the longest day of the year, I also felt a little bit exposed without the rain fly, because our tent has a panel of transparent netting right along the ground, and campers taking their evening walk around the campground—a common habit—would be able to see me lying there on the ground in evening light, covered with a sheet and defenseless.  

Of greater interest than the birds at this time of year are the prairie plants. There were lots of white indigo in the fields on the first part of the Pelican Trail. I noticed just now that this plant is listed as "native, rare" on the Minnesota Wildflowers website.

We also spotted the clump of compass plant we'd admired a few years ago on the same trail, but they were still a few weeks from blooming.

We investigated the four backpacking campsite along the route. All of them were along the shore of the lake, and several were nice. But you would have to carry in your water, and I had to remind myself it would be a drag hauling your comfy and indispensable camp chair way out there.

The various butterflies and dragonflies along the trail were also beautiful and intriguing. And fleeting. And nameless.

It was getting hot by the time we got back to our site and broke camp. By midday we were exploring the backstreets of Albert Lea, trying to find Edgewater Park.