John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Journal columnist

“There’s a long-distance train, rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write.” — Bob Dylan

When the rain comes down, I want to be out in it.

I love the smell of the damp, charged air. There’s an excitement out there beyond windows, walls and doors when it rains — either sprinkles or thunderstorms — that doesn’t exist at any other time.

I like to walk in the rain. I like to fish in the rain.

It’s raining, it’s pouring. The old man is snoring.

I outstretch my hands. I am like a tree that turns its leaves upward toward the tumbling raindrops. The maples and basswood have leaves that remind me of baseball mitts, set to catch as many raindrops as they can.

The rain is life. I can feel that. It’s an intrinsic knowledge that I can also sense coursing through my body. That might be the source of the excitement.

The robins have a special rain song. I think I do too. It’s that feeling I get within me that makes being out there under the dark, rolling clouds and curtains of falling water droplets a heavenly sensation.

My song is sung on the inside.

Electricity, snapping and crackling. The colors of the skies, deep purples, pinks and shocking electric blue.

Razamanazin’ you never expected.

I think people and animals are alike in that some love the rain, others don’t.

Trout like the cover the raindrops on the water provides, allowing them to feel safer about darting out from under the grassy banks and sunken logs to feed.

I am still stunned by how much magic there is in seeing a trout jump out of the water or even hearing the sound and recognizing what it is, much like the ostentatious slap of a beaver tail.

Ducks love the rain. The past couple of days, I’ve seen exquisite wood duck and hooded merganser drakes promenading with understated hens across the dappled surface of the limited open waters of the lake.

I think I can almost hear these ducks laughing, giggling like schoolkids who also love to play outside in the rain. Puddle stompers. Rule-breakers. Soakers and splashers.

The rain falls back. Fog rolling in, wrapping itself like a heavy, wet coat around everything from craggy tree trunks to old gray buildings to silhouetted people and parked cars.

The energy level slips to almost zero.

Then there’s a dank chill that floats in and drops, along with the silence of the night. The rain has stopped, and the fog has blossomed. It’s getting thicker, transforming in consistency from soft silk cloth to wet wool.

The fog seems to hold a buffering effect that dampens noise. The sound of car wheels rolling over the wet highway seem dulled. There are no real night nature sounds now. Like the robins and the hermit thrush flautists, they’ve all been hushed.

In their place, the silence is profound and possesses its own life. I stand on the concrete step feeling as though I could absorb it through my skin. I take extra deep breaths and feel the fresh, clean air fill my lungs.

I can’t decide which sensation I love more, the drawing in, the holding or the letting go of those deep breaths. It doesn’t matter. I revel in the exhilarating feeling.

Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.

Sometimes, during summer rains at night, I can hear the loons singing from way out there somewhere on the lake. That haunting tremolo is creepy to some. It comforts me. It’s so primitive, plaintive and beautiful.

Light filtered through the fog is interesting to see. You can get a better visual sense of how far a beam of light stretches into the night.

Light is life too. That’s another intrinsic and perceptible truth.

There’s another sense I get when the dense fog surrounds me – a drowsiness that aims to pull me down for a good long sleep.

Like a baby, I fight it, but eventually succumb to the profound quiet and white-gray pall cast over everything, urging me to find the warmth of a blanket and the softness of a place to lie down. This is, after all, the wee hours.

In the morning, there is fresh muck everywhere, a product of the rain. Red earthworms twist around in the bottom of mud puddles. Dead leaves are there too, blackened, brown and torn.

Down the dirt roads, traces of animals sharing the places we travel. Here are the tracks of two wolves, deep in the heart of this Northwoods splendor.

The next day, I follow the footprints of a moose whose morning walk took it just a few feet past the windows and doors of a backwoods cabin.

Just before reaching the blacktop on the bridge, the moose ambled down into the tangles and the brambles at the side of the road – headed down toward the banks of the swollen river, the full vernal ponds and the places where ancient people camped.

Overhead, a bald eagle glides low while a pair of swans trumpet their arrival. Animals and people are alike in another way too. Some are loud and some are quiet.

What time does that train leave? I want to be on it. I want to hear the whistle and the drivers and the heavy sound of wheels rolling over the steel rails.

I’ll pay my fare, just give me the full ride.

But those trains don’t run here anymore. Weeds are grown up between the rusted rails. The windows of the depot are broken, and the building’s bricks are chipped and cracked.

In places like this, in times like these, the rain coming down can be cold.

It can soak quickly through my jacket, down to my skin, like that summer night in Nebraska when I was no match for an Ogallala downpour.

I shiver off a chill, wishing I’d worn my warmer coat or that I was sitting in a grandma’s kitchen somewhere smelling warm cinnamon cookies or spiced pumpkin pie baking.

It’s not the rain itself that’s making me shiver. It’s the combination of the rain and the cold with the loss, the decay and the dissolution of the enterprise here.

Rotting railcars, like bombed, burned-out buildings, sit silently under the trees.

The engineers are ghosts. The brakemen are broken.

All the rain today won’t wash this heartache away. But it will make the creeks rise and the streams overflow. The ice on the lakes deforms and sags, like one-time famous figures in Vincent Price’s wax museum.

It feels like raindrops, falling from my eyes.

I feel the power of this place with its chipped paint, broken bones and withering.

From this dreary scene, the green grass of springtime will eventually sprout, bringing the promise of another season — one of sunshine and soda pop, comic books and bubble gum — happy and sublime.

In that season, I’ll walk the dirt roads, dusty and dry, down to the intersection where the old mill stood along the stream, wishing for rain. Contradiction, intuition, nothing here to see.

The conductor punches my ticket. I put my hat on the seat and slide across to the window. Let me ride.

Editor’s note: John Pepin is the deputy public information officer for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula. Send correspondence to pepinj@michigan.gov or 1990 U.S. 41 South, Marquette, MI 49855.