“I don’t see any camping equipment,” I said when I got in the passenger’s side.

“It’s all in the trunk,” he said. “This thing has a huge trunk.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure that’s where it is.”

“I hope you brought some money,” he said. “The stakes might be a little higher than what you’re used to.”

“This feels like a mistake already,” I said. I watched the town roll by as we headed south down the main road, past the Glasgow Inn. It felt strange to be passing it without stopping. As we paused at the blinking yellow light, I looked at the new motel they had put up on that corner. The gas station was across the street, then another bar. There were two gift shops on the west side of the road, then another little motel. For a moment I wondered if maybe Jackie’s Yukon idea wasn’t so bad after all. If Paradise, Michigan was starting to look too busy for me, maybe it was time to head into the woods.

A half-mile south of town, we crossed over a thin, curving strip of land that separated the lake on one side from a pond on the right. It always made me feel like I was driving on a tightrope when I came this way myself. Jackie kept one hand on the wheel and kept his speed up all the way around the bend. Never mind that one false move and we’d slide right into Lake Superior.

The sun was just beginning to set when we hit Lakeshore Drive. It’s a twenty mile stretch along the southern rim of Whitefish Bay, maybe the emptiest road I’ve ever been on. In the wintertime you’d be a fool to try it, but on a summer evening it was the only way to go.

We drove in silence for a while. “You really missed me, didn’t you,” I finally said.