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Kneeling amongst the ferns, I pull a bundle of blueberries out a little, place the small plastic bucket underneath and use my fingers to try and rake off as many as I can. We’ve been in this sunny, quiet clearing, wandering the mossy ground for over an hour and I still haven’t settled on a picking technique. I individually pluck the remaining berries into the bucket and stand up. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and squint, stretch my back, shake out my legs and scan the burnt pillars that used to be trees and the lush, hip-high greenery for my partners. Not seeing anyone, I take a few steps back to the sandy logging road and head towards the car. I hadn’t been to the Upper Peninsula for a full summer in a few years. Like a lot of teenagers that grow up in a small town, all I could think about was getting out. Spain was calling. I took my degree and flew to Madrid. Four years later I’m seeing these old mining towns with a whole new heart. The hundred year old roofless stone structures that crumble on side of the road are no longer eye sores. The two streets villages we drive through with their corner stores and dingy bars are as magnificently appealing as any of the Pueblos Blancos I visited in Cadiz. Eagle Harbor, Wolverine and Kearsarge are leaving me in quiet contemplation just as Arcos de la Frontera, Grazalema and Ubrique had. Having poured all of our berries into large ziplock bags, we’re back in the car, my brother driving, his girlfriend Marisa in the front seat and my mother and I in the back. We pass two bags of chips and a jar of salsa around as we drive down the curving, two lane roads, the trees on either side reaching their branches over the top, letting the light play on the concrete and splash around the car. Twenty minutes later we’re parking the car in a small dirt clearing at the end of another logging road. We change into our swim suits and go down the foot-path towards the lake. Upon reaching the lake, the well-worn dark earth path turns along a ridge parallel to the water. My mother and Marisa are a few paces behind chatting. I’m quietly sipping a cold beer while we walk in the late afternoon sun and my brother throws his sunflower seed shells into the dirt. Approaching the mouth of the small Montreal River, we can hear it before we see it. The path opens up and we walk down towards the shore. I set down my beer on a rocky strip of beach, take off my shirt and gently walk towards the lake. My toes touch the cold, clear water and I inhale slowly before stepping forward, trying to keep my breathing steady as the frigid water moves up my legs, then waist, before I inhale deeply and plunge. Underwater in the cold clarity, I pause and listen. I take in the steady rush of the river meeting the lake then bring my legs underneath me and stand up. I look back and smile as everyone emerges from the lake in gasps. We swim to the mouth of the river, climb on the ancient rocks and watch the sun slide towards the coastline. Not wanting to walk the path in the dark, we leave before it sets, jump in the car and head back to the main road. We pass back through the villages, the streetlights just starting to come on, the company-built matching houses on both sides of the road, people in front of the bar smoking in the warm summer evening. We pass more ruins, the largest steam hoists in the world that used to lower newly arrived immigrants down into copper mines a mile deep. We pass all the things I’ve driven by a thousand times but can now actually see, from a 3000 mile perspective.