“The railroad crossed the continent, and the buildings scratch the sky, the highway runs all over the place and the big jet engines fly,” – Steve Forbert

As I headed up the highway north, it seemed like I was going the wrong way – even though the digital lady’s voice broadcasting satellite-fed directions to me claimed otherwise. “Proceed to the route,” she said. The farther I drove, the more the traffic thinned out and the buildings, people, signs, highways, lights, graffiti, congestion, airplanes, construction, garbage and other indications of habitation, industry and whirring bee-hive activity diminished.

Typically, I would see leaving these things behind me as a very positive sign. However, every mile I drove brought me closer to an inevitability that I was hesitant to accept. I felt shivery and a little sick to my stomach. It was like grabbing a cold, wet towel off the bathroom rack and pulling it around my bare back and shoulders.

Ahead of me were thick-clouded, gray skies, lingering patches of ice and snow, heavy slops of black and brown mud covering the dirt side roads, rivers topping their banks, flowing dark and swollen and big, wet snow flurries still drifting through the air, hitting the windshield. Wintertime, or what was left of it, still had a pronounced presence here amid the rolling hills and forested countryside that is home for me. I could feel my heart sinking.

“California dreaming on such a winter’s day.”

Once it gets past mid-April, residents of this rugged and wild region greatly anticipate and expect the arrival of springtime, with its flowers blooming, birds singing, sunnier skies and warmer temperatures. But it seems to me that the past few winters have started later and lasted longer.

One of the worst snowstorms we’ve had in recent years came during the first week of May – a three-day banger that took down trees and put out the power.

I was headed home from the Land of Lincoln with the Queen of Shebis. We had gone out of town for a couple days of rest and relaxation, which were splendid. Even though the Chicago breezes were doing their “windy city” kind of thing, and it rained much of our time there, it was certainly springtime there. People were already mowing grass, fresh, green leaves were popping out on trees and the widespread ornamental crab apple, cherry, magnolia and other trees and bushes were blooming everywhere.

Imagine almost every suburban yard with at least a couple of blooming white apple blossoms or pink crabapple flowers. It was breathtaking. The songs of male cardinals echoed through the air with that species as common there as robins are here. Red-bellied woodpeckers were also heard often as well as a northern mockingbird.

Tree swallows flew in relaxing gliding fashion overhead. I watched a robin with an earthworm in its mouth perch on a windowsill and stare intently at its own reflection. vIn addition to all this visual beauty and the homey feel of the sculpted residential cul-de-sacs and neighborhoods, the cultural, architectural and intellectual opportunities almost every place I looked soon made me realize that I miss the city a lot more than I had thought I did.

Did I mention the incredible deep-dish Chicago-style pizza? Well, I should have. We ate in a Ravenswood neighborhood pizzeria with folks in and out of the restaurant trained intently on television sets showing the Chicago Cubs game. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. After we finished eating, we went to a Steve Forbert concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music where I spent a lot of my time virtually learning music production during the pandemic.

When the show was over, I gave Steve a buffalo nickel, which is the name of one of his songs. “I’m thinking about a buffalo nickel, the kind I’m inclined to save. On one side, a solitary buffalo stands on the other there’s an Indian brave.” The next day, with the Queen’s uncle – a former employee – and her delightful aunt as our guides, we visited the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, “where groundbreaking particle physics research meets the pioneering spirit of the American prairie.”

The facility is named for Enrico Fermi, often called the “architect of the nuclear age,” who created the first artificial nuclear reactor. He was a member of the Manhattan Project and among those who wanted to see the technology used for peaceful means. Beyond the mind-bending science happening at the laboratory, the grounds are also home to unique sculptures, a resident bison herd and a sweeping tall-grass prairie and wooded natural areas.

Since 1975, the lab has worked to reconstruct the prairie that once covered the grounds. Today, there are about 1,200 acres of prairie there in varying stages of recovery. Each year, the prairie is burned to encourage native prairie plants while eliminating non-native weedy species.

We parked along a widened shoulder of the road when we saw bison standing in a green field, with a young calf among the herd. When we approached, the buffalo moved farther out into the field, with the calf lying down in the short, green grass. According to the latest update, there are two calves, 23 cows and two bulls in the herd this spring. The laboratory maintains a live online bison camera for the public. Staff estimates there will be 20 calves this year. The herd has been maintained on the lab grounds since 1969.

We next got out of the car at an interpretive trail that crisscrosses the once glacier-covered prairie that borders a primarily oak woodland. There is a half-mile inner loop trail and a 12-mile outer loop. During the later weeks of springtime, this land will be covered with blooming wildflowers. Now, the dead heads of autumn remained on the stems of the yellowed, tall grasses. I watched an eastern meadowlark riding on the top of tall length of grass, bobbing in the wind. Sparrows of unknown identities chirped and whistled from among the grasses, but they never emerged.

I stepped over fresh coyote tracks pressed into a muddy portion of the trail. The two ruts of the trail were easily visible, even from a distance, as the entire trail was covered in green grass, which greatly contrasted with the yellowed and browned plants growing here. We followed the pathway into the woods where there were numerous wildflowers blooming close to the ground. Our guide was able to name many of the plants having graduated from a master naturalist class.

Most of the flowers were unfamiliar to me, except the trout lily, which there was white rather than the yellow I am used to seeing here. I pointed out a tree fallen and charred that had likely been struck by lightning. Another toppled tree was entirely hollow, not something I am used to seeing. A mighty bur oak stood in the forest, dwarfing all the other trees with its massive rugged and aged character. Bur oaks have the largest native acorns. This one, with its bare branches and scraggly appearance looked like it should be growing next to a haunted house on a hill someplace.

A flat rock, about the size of a picnic basket, was visible on the ground just off the edge of the trail. The rock was an erratic, not originally from this place, but carried here by a retreating glacier at the end of the last ice age. I slept well both nights in the hotel in the quiet suite situated at the end of a long hallway. The bed was comfortable, and the big pillows were nice and firm. Getting ready to head north on that drive home, the Shebis was eating leftover pizza for breakfast. I was chewing on some leftover steak and some warm-over loaded mashed potatoes from the day before last.

I mentioned that I really liked our visit to the laboratory and the hike at the grasslands and the oak woods. She then put her pizza down and responded with something quite insightful. The Queen said that no matter whether you grow up – whether in the north woods, the western deserts, the prairies, the beach or anywhere else – nature always provides the same healing, relaxation and restorative effects.

I smiled back at her and said, “Hey, that’s a column right there. You should write it. Go ahead. Do it.” Picking her piece of pizza back up, she looked at me like I was crazier than she already thought I was. That, in total, was her answer. Meanwhile, as I type this, there’s not much happening on the Fermi lab’s bison cam. The animals are all at the back of the enclosure.

I can understand that. That’s where I’d be too.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.