One of those "Marquette summertime days"

I took a short walk in the sunshine to another building on the St. Norbert College campus today and couldn't help from reminicing about similar walks I took as a student on the NMU campus in Marquette.
It's a gorgeous day in early May. Students are scurrying around with finals on their minds while a light breeze blows in off the lake. Seventy- degree temperatures warm the sidewalk below my feet, seagulls laugh and the bright baby-green grass clashes with the blueness of the sky.
I can remember what it was like to have the promise of an entire college summer ahead of me. Sure, there were summer internships to go to and summer classes to take but the thought of living in Marquette in the summertime was a precious gift.
Marquette summers were filled with hikes up Sugarloaf or to Dead River Falls (running into ten people you know on the way), sunbathing at Picnic Rocks, shopping at Art on the Rocks and staying out until the wee hours at the Shamrock and My Place. My roommate and I lived just off of Third Street where we could walk to Frosty Treats and still be within earshot of our porch. Although I was not always a fan, Kid Rock's song "summertime in Northern Michigan" captures the true essence a carefree Marquette summer day. There was no place I would have rather been during my college years.
Fifteen years later, I get a small doses of that feeling on daytrips to Marquette or on days like today- where the sun is shining and magic is in the air.