The Road to Manitoba

After days of driving and sleeping in my car, I finally made it to a destination where I wasn't bound to spend my time alone.  I met a friend of a friend, who is now just a friend.  He showed me a hawk I've never seen, and showed a beautiful part of the country that I could have never found on my own.  Cory also knew two other young birders who were in the area, one of whom also needed to find a spruce grouse.  We decided to go on an evening hunt for the grouse, and as birders always do, whatever else good that might happen to pop up.  We all hopped into Cory's coupe, two of us cramming into the back.  The sun was already beginning its slide down the horizon, but it wasn't quite lost to the edges of the earth.  The sandy roads were like a gentle roller coaster, and the music brought back a child-like excitement in the same way.  Cory hit the brakes for a sparrow.  But what sparrow could I really need?  The only remaining piece of my sparrows for the region, the Vesper.  Just as his name suggests, he sat  right in the fading light of day.  We continued forward, only to park and search on foot for the grouse.  We spread through the forest like a comb, looking for owls and grouse.  The only success was an inquisitive pine warbler, a beauty even in the fading light.  How much light could be left?  The perfect amount to drive further until the road met its end.  The region has so much beauty.  The pine forests with a layer of decay that breaks to sand under every step.  The rolling mounds, too small to be considered hills.  The wind from Superior, blowing through the needles of every tree.  As the trees faded, the sand remained, forming dunes with tall scrub grass and blowing fiercely with the help of the wind.  An old lake house, beautiful to behold with glass parapet and lake view windows.  It held stories of saviors, waiting for the calls of distress from boats lost to the deeps.  Closer to the water the sand gave way to the smoothest granite stone.  Hidden within the expanse were agate, clean and pure, making for a search.  We decided to skip rocks.  The wind disagreed with our attempts to cover the bottom with flat rocks that have slid across the surface, defying the grip of the water.  The wind prevailed until we found a lakeside pond, its smooth surface calling for disturbance.  We laughed and skipped stones as the last rays reached over the edge of the earth, gripping to  give us just a few more moments of light.  The blaze on the rocks seemed afire, the window panes looked as though they could melt, replaced by the melting of the sands on the beach.  The cold of the wind sends us resentfully back to the car, to ride the coaster in the dark.