The day woke up cloudy and cold on Boblo Island. We took our coffee out to the edge of Lake Huron and peered up at tentative spots of blue sky above the distant trees. We have gotten pretty far away from urban biking. We came up here one last time this year to close up the tiny cabin for the season.
In the summer, the days here are spent in an on the water. Now, the water is so cold you feel icicles forming the the marrow of your bones when you step in. This lonely island has a remote kind of charm in the cooler season. You feel a little special having come here when hardly anyone else does: braver, hardier, more pure... The air smells of rain and moldy leaves and damp earth, and yet has a kind of crispness in it that foreshadows the coming of snow.
This time we all brought our mountain bikes. Although there are no hills on this island, there is a single unpaved road that runs its perimeter, and a network of rolling ATV trails that take you into its interior. Another such trail runs to the island's northernmost tip, where an old lighthouse stands. A three-mile ride from our cabin, this seemed like a good place to bike with the kids.
After riding about a mile on the gravel road, we turned onto the trail. The road was pleasant, rolling gently up and down, with an odd washed-out rut, a stone-cobbled descent and intricate networks of tree roots providing some challenge and surprise. Our first stop was the entrance to a sandy beach, a rarity on Boblo.
Most of the way we rode under a canopy and on a carpet of gold and rust-colored leaves, as resident maples and birches shed their foliage.
We ran into some other residents, too.
The lighthouse, boarded up and somewhat forbidding. The sign warned us not to trespass. But since no one was there to enforce the sign, we enjoyed a picnic in sheltered sunspot: sandwiches accompanied by homegrown tomatoes (yep, we still have'em), tea for the grown ups and hot chocolate for the kids. No food tastes as good as the stuff you consume kneeling on a blanket in the grass, after riding a bike in cool fall weather.
Our kids eagerly took to off-road biking. Although Peter complained a little about being tired on the way back, he still banked into his turns with relish, and tried to catch some air on the descents. Nadia, hampered somewhat by the smaller wheels and number of gears had to push her bike a few times, never lost the spirit of adventure.
The day ended as it had begun, on the shore of the big lake by the fire. The wind fanned the green smoke out over the water, as the chill from the damp rocks worked its way up our backs, and we thought of the summer that faded away.
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