Blueberries

  Chris and I spent a week camping up near Grayling in August. We stayed in the Kneff Lake National Forest campground about 10 miles east of town. It's a very quiet and remote area. Kneff is a small sand-bottomed lake with no boat launch so it sees very little use - perfect for snorkeling. There wasn't much to see on the sandy bottom but I caught a glint of movement in my periphery and looked back to see about 50 bluegills following me. Guess I was an anomaly in their normally quiet world.
  Later, we followed a trail behind our campsite and discovered a field of wild blueberries that seemed to go on forever.  We ate our way up the hill until our hands were sticky and lips painted blue. We gathered blueberries by the bucketful and gorged ourselves for several days. What a jackpot!
  Late at night the stars were so thick there were hardly any spaces between them - a blanket, if you will, as thick where the forest met the sky as it was overhead and bright enough to cast shadows.  We were amazed at the amount of space junk up there - lonely ships plying a vast ocean of stars. When the moon did eventually rise the night grew bright as a typical overcast day.
  And it was calm. The smoke from our fire wafted slowly upward and I remembered that Grandpa Beeler used to build newspaper balloons (or parachutes) to send skyward on a campfire's heat column. We tried all manner of configurations but couldn't get it right. Fun trying, though.
  Then it got cold. The temperature dipped into the low 40's one night which is almost unheard of for August. And that led us to discover that our camper furnace didn't work. A revolting development, for sure. Sunrise brought welcome warmth but it was a long, cold night.
  The next evening the wind came up, alive and jostling the pines. The wind became their common voice but each pine had a distinct tongue. I looked up at the silhouettes and saw these trees holding hands with the wind. With wavelike bowings and risings, they seemed to pass the wind from one to another. It was a revelation for me.
  Yeah, this was a peaceful time and place. If I could bottle the contentment we experienced and spread it around the world, we'd be living in a much happier place.