Chasing Déjà Vu in the Upper Peninsula

déjà vu

noun dé·jà vu \ˌdā-ˌzhä-ˈvü, –ˈvue\

Déjà vu sneaks up on us when we least expect it. It makes us pause and try to grasp a wisp of a memory that we just can’t put our finger on. That is, unless we’re chasing Déjà vu as a parent. Not quite Déjà vu, maybe. We want so badly to recreate, capture, those epic childhood experiences for our own children, so they can feel exactly what we felt. I do it more frequently than I’d like to admit.

A few weeks ago, I found myself chasing Déjà vu in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My parents, son, and I spent the weekend camping near Munising, Michigan. We stayed at the same campground we camped at when I was a child.

We climbed the Grand Sable sand dunes; the same dunes I scrambled up as a kid.

Skipped rocks on every possible body of water. Yep, we did that as kids, too.

When we weren’t throwing rocks we were collecting rocks and hoping for agates, where permitted. My dad still carries two rocks in his pockets that my brother and I found all those years ago.

We swam at the beach in Grand Marais. Lake Superior was colder 30 years ago, but we did that, too.

Of course, we gasped as we took in the views at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

And stopped for real Michigan pasties before heading south to home.

We made sure to do all the things my brother and I did as children camping in the UP. Most of it measured up, but none of them came with a sense of Déjà vu.

It’s okay to chase Déjà vu for our kids as long as we balance it with creating our own, new and unforgettable traditions. Our new spin on a familiar camping trip included collecting rocks to make Munch’s The Scream and posing with Big Foot at my dad’s suggestion (I guarantee that NEVER would have happened in my youth).

My son may not have loved his time in the Upper Peninsula the way I did as a child, but we spent the weekend talking, laughing, and exploring and that’s definitely the kind of Déjà vu I was chasing.