From there, I drove to nearby Esch Beach, following a gravel road through a pristine woodland, windows open. I could almost hear the ghosts of Aral, a logging boom town here in the late 1800s that all but disappeared once the timber was gone, around 1930. On impulse, I stopped and cut the motor; only the symphony of birdsong filled my ears. Drinking in the fresh air, I felt intoxicated. By the time I got to the nearly deserted beach, I was in full Zen mode.

On this day, Lake Michigan was painted in a moody palette of grays and silvers, with a straight dark line at the overcast horizon. With no wind, the water was as smooth as glass and crystal-clear, its sandy bottom peppered with stones rounded by endless waves. I crouched by the water’s edge and listened to the quiet, which was broken only by the gentle lapping of water on sand, as soothing as any sound machine.

Less gentle was the frigid water, which wouldn’t warm to swimsuit-worthy temperatures until July. I waded in to my knees, feeling my calves turn numb as a pro athlete’s in an ice bath. A more appealing way to enjoy the lake appeared when three standup paddle boarders glided by, silent as swans. Surfers, too, can be seen catching waves year round, and you can rent a board or take a lesson through the friendly Sleeping Bear Surf & Kayak shop in Empire.

I ambled down the beach to where a couple and two young children scavenged for Petoskey stones (Michigan’s state stone) — fossils beautifully laced with a honeycomb pattern, relics from when warm seas and coral reefs covered this region 350 million years ago.

“Find any?” I asked.

The father shook his head, while his impatient wife — a Nebraska native — had given up, deeming the treasure “an urban legend,” Lake Michigan’s version of the Loch Ness monster. (Local stores hawking the stones, polished to a high sheen and often made into jewelry, would disagree.)