Last week felt like our trip had not officially started, as we were been waiting for our final piece of equipment to arrive.  Which means we were going around in circles around West Michigan, waiting for it to arrive. It’s a solar panel! And we think it has enough wattage to give us sustainable power through several days of off-the-grid camping. Our trip is in a big part motivated by sustainability, so we’re excited to use it. 
While waiting, we decided to spend the weekend at Silver Lake Dunes, as my father-in-law has a cottage there. Most of Autumn’s family came, including Felton, my brother-in-law’s dog, who baptized the place by running out of the car, right into the central part of the living room, and taking a shit in front of everyone. Yeah, Felton is a… special dog.
On saturday we left our camper there and drove back to Muskegon, to meet with two of our closest friends, Beth & David, who were on their way back to Wisconsin via Lake Michigan ferry. We had dinner at a place that had an “award winning” soup. Just like that, in quotation marks. The soup was basically liquified cheddar, and it was “good.” We then walked through Pere Marquette park, a beautiful beach on the lake. We hadn’t seen each other in a while but it was as if no days had pass. I’ve grown to love them in a special way, as their relationship, their curiosity, and their itinerant life reminds me of ourselves.
“Special things happen when we’re together,” I say as we watch the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. What a cliché, to feel emotional over a sunset, but what can I tell you, it was a pretty good one. Now I’m convinced I’m not the kind of person that would cry over a sunset, and I didn’t. But I could have if I would’ve allowed it.
We head back to Silver lake, and on Sunday we walked in the dunes. Several sand dunes surround Lake Michigan and Silver lake, and it’s such a powerful landscape. While walking there I told my niece Hannah, queen of the eye-roll, about the Star Wars composer who came to Silver Lake, and it was here where he felt inspired to write the Darth Vader theme song.
She knew it was a set up so she just looked at me, already annoyed.
“Yeah, apparently he pointed at the landscape and went ‘dune, dune, dune, dune-dune-dune, dune-dune-dune!'”
Both Autumn and her were not impressed with my ¨award winning” comedy.

Then we headed out to Manistee National Forest, and arrived at Condon lake, a small camping site where we camped for free. And this was a big part of our plan: to live in shared land they belongs to you, me, and Woody Guthrie. That night I finally reorganized the car while Aut prepared dinner. When she called me in we set a table with spaghetti, a side salad, and wine, and that tiny table in the middle of the silence of an isolated forest was suddenly home. That dinner was more powerful than a sunset, apparently, because I cried.  

Not everything is overwhelming beauty. A couple days later we slept in the parking lot of Camping World, an RV store by the side of an intersection in a town called Houghton Lake. Instead of birds chirping we were woken up by a delivery truck backing up right next to us at 7 am. That morning, in the store lounge, we had a conversation with an older couple from Alabama, who after a friendly introductory chat asked me if I was illegal. She made some pretty strong comments about immigration. My first instinct was to respond aggressively, and show how upset I was. But this woman was legitimately curious about my opinion so I calmly expressed the importance of immigration, and when she talked about assimilation and people speaking English I talked about the multicultural background of the people that have been living there long before the United States was founded. “That’s a good perspective” she said, and while I doubt 15 minutes of conversation in the lounge of Camping World of Houghton Lake was enough to make her go back to Alabama to let all friends and family know how mistaken they are, I felt proud to have had a conversation that may have helped someone understand a new point of view. Whenever I think of people like her, hardcore conservatives with deep held beliefs against immigration, I try to remember that for the most part there’s no ill will in them. The majority of them are not intrinsically hateful. We just live in different realities, and the moral convictions that were imposed onto her are different than the ones that were imposed on me. Their isolation from urban areas with more immigration limits their understanding of other spaces, and it’s good to have opportunities to share experiences with others. Reaching out to the other side with empathy and compassion is the only way to build a healthy society. Hard to do it though, as sometimes with those comments my mind just wants to go to the dark side (queue the Darth Vader dune song).

We then spent two days in Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Forest, where the weather was rainy. Which meant spending a lot of time together in our little house. We made it work by pretending we live in a normally sized apartment, so when I needed something I would yell to the other side of the house. We had an awesome hike through the woods that lead to a dramatic view of lake Michigan. Aut saw a really cool bird and got so excited she hurt my arm.
Yesterday we had dinner at Petoskey, an artsy, touristy little town, where we splurged with dinner, a brewery visit, and incredible gelato. And then slept in another parking lot, this time in a casino.
We have crossed the Mackinaw bridge today, so we’re officially in Michigan’s UP! Next week we’re taking a break while I fly to San Francisco for 5 days, because I got a couple of gigs with a company called “Comedy Central”? Never heard of it. I should be writing for these gigs, but haven’t had much time. My mind is focused on this trip!

Up next:
Saint Ignace
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
Marquette, MI
And San Francisco!

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If you want, reply to the letter and let me know if you have questions, comments, or insults. Thanks for reading this. Love you all!

Esteban