The sun is shining, the last of the dew is evaporating off the grass, there’s a slight breeze drifting through the leaves and the wind chimes, and the mid-morning temperature is perfect for shorts. It’s early August in Traverse City, and the weather is perfect.
Sitting on my patio with a cup of hot tea, I can’t imagine a more perfect morning.

Northern Michigan is simply gorgeous when the weather cooperates. In the summer, that’s most of the time. Sure, there are days when it rains. One of Michigan’s unoffiicial slogans is “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute and it will change.” The reverse, sadly, also is true, If you do like the weather, like I do at the moment, it is guaranteed to change soon.

Now, don’t get me wrong, changing weather is a good thing. (Though I do have occasional wistful thoughts about Tahiti, where the temperature always seems to hover between 70 and 90 and it always seems to be sunny.) A freshening rainstorm or shower is usually a great change, helping to green our local world and fill our many lakes and rivers.

I’ve lived in a couple of places where rain came with amazing regularity. Central Florida seems to have a 15-minute shower every morning from September through April. But then the sun breaks through and dries your clothes within another 15 minutes.

On the peaks of the mountains of Colorado, at least on the western slope, a crashing thunderstorm seems to roll in every day around noon. Experienced climbers start their treks very early in the morning (think well before dawn) so they can reach the peak and be on their way back down before the daily lightning show begins.

In summer, Michigan lacks that kind of regularity. We can have two or three weeks of beautiful sunny days, then a brief shower to reduce fire danger. Or we can see a week of rainy days, then one of sun. Mother Nature likes to keep us hopping here in Michigan.

On the whole, summers are grand in Traverse City. We’re far enough north that the temperature rarely reaches the depressingly oppressive heat that I’ve experienced in Iowa and Illinois and Alabama. And when the heat here does get up in the 90s, there’s always a beach nearby to help you cool off.

Anyway, this morning is unbelievably perfect here on our patio. Though the forecast called for a good chance of rain, the sky is an intense field of deep blue with just a wisp of cloud floating by. Maybe a bit too cool for a tubing trip down the Boardman River today, but I’m thinking about maybe a long bicycle ride on the Leelanau Trail. Of just a walk in the woods. Some kind of summer experience that I can recall and savor this coming winter.