For this post in the 31 Days of Free Writes challenge, I sort of did two free writes, one on topic, and one off. And then I took a bunch of extra time and sort of tacked them together. So, free write one is on the official prompt (brew) and free write two is where my heart really is (fog).

On a trip to northern Wisconsin last year or the year before, I purchased a bag of Midnight Voyageur (dark roast) from Big Water Coffee Roasters, a shop located in Bayfield, WI that roasts its own beans. The flavor made such an impression on me I asked my family to order me some for Christmas.

This weekend, my husband and I returned to the area. With a cup of their coffee warming my hands, I explained to my husband, not a coffee drinker, that drinking other coffee and then drinking this coffee was akin to eating fortune cookies your whole life and then finding out there was such a thing as a chocolate chip cookie. Who knew a cookie could taste so good? Who knew coffee could be this roasty delicious?

Needless to say, I secured a very large bag of their dark roast. Given it’s size, it’ll probably last until Christmas, maybe longer, which is good since no one ordered me a bag last year 😉

But on a more serious note, something else that made the trip memorable was watching fog like we’d never seen it before roll in and out in a gigantic wall across Lake Superior. This picture isn’t up for any awards, but it gives the gist of what it looked like as it rolled toward shore:

And so, here’s the second free write:

A wall of fog obscures Lake Superior from our eyes.
The lake is too wide to see across,
Deep and wide and long and
Yet invisible.
Though it’s at our toes,
you’d never know it by trusting your eyes.
Your ears give you hints of it, the sloshing,
The bird crying,
Yes, you can sense it here.
You know something great is just out of sight,
A whole great lake,
but your eyes will fail you.
The fog rolled in, four stories tall or taller,
A wall, penetrable but blinding.
In this world of fog,
Our faith rests in things unseen.