When you drive down the hill, you see it. That first glimpse of Lake Michigan sparkling, dazzling in the sunlight, blue ripples peaking out beyond the green lawn and the white cottages. You hear it, the waves lapping the shore. You roll down the windows and you breathe deeply. There is no other smell like it.

Jolli Lodge is a place like no other. I have tried to describe it. It is an inn on 700 feet of Lake Michigan that was built as a summer retreat in 1928. It still has most of the original furniture. No air conditioning. Don’t need it with the breeze off the lake. No phones in the rooms and cottages. That is a good thing. A mangle to press the sheets (look it up!) Marshmallow roasts on Monday nights (it used to be Sunday), tennis court, pool table, ping pong, a teen room, soccer, horseshoes, tether ball, boats on beach, bicycles for all ages to borrow on the drive.

They were all here when I first started coming–40 years ago this week. I am sure of it. Our first year we stayed here was the year Nixon resigned and we watched him take off from the White House lawn on a grainy TV in the lodge lobby. That year we stayed in the lodge. Other years we rented a cottage for a week or two.

There are so many memories. Playing soccer at dusk and being kicked in the shin (ouch) by the son of the proprietor, a kid my brother’s age, now the proprietor himself. The year(s) we ran the Fish Hook road race. The year(s) we helped build the 4th of July float. All the years we celebrated my parents’ birthdays. The years we watched Wimbleton and then tried our own hand at tennis. The year we watched the final match of the World Cup after coming here direct from Germany. The year I swam out to rescue an inner tube. The year of the paintball wars. The year I stayed in Jim Harrison’s room and thought I had to pen (yes, still pen) the next great American novel. No pressure to do that this year! The year I first brought Simon up here and we lay on the hill and watched the meteor shower. The year we couldn’t afford to come but my parents were in the lodge. We camped down the road in a tent and it rained every night. I threatened to sleep on the porch. The year I first brought my daughter here and measured her against The Tree. A birch tree. A signal tree, pointing the way, according to the Native Americans.

That tree is gone now. So are both my parents and Keith Jolliffe. Some new growth is sprouting from the base of the stump.

But the stars. Oh wow, the stars. And those sunsets, glass of Leelenau Cellars Summer Sunset wine in hand.

This is the first trip up here without my parents, without my now grown-up daughter. It seemed odd at first. Someone played a guitar version of “Tears in Heaven,” softly on the porch. I cried watching the sunset. My mother and my daughter have been here all week–in a sandhill crane, in a chubby Mary, in a bottle of Witches Brew.

There is a (newer) zip line and four or five kayaks. Now there is wifi in the lobby of the lodge. I am not entirely sure that is a good thing. But I am using it.

What is a good thing, beyond the stunning beauty, is that this place is timeless. It is a place where you can kick back and relax. It is a place where no one cares who you are or what you accomplished this year. It is a place to just be. That is the real beauty of Jolli Lodge.