Sarah went went to her dawn workout outdoors this morning, despite our latest wave of arctic air. The weatherbug reading below was shortly after her workout, as the air started warming up.
Naturally, afterwards, I got a text saying, “You should go skiing! It’s beautiful out!”
<struggling to help Maggie get her long underwear and pants on at the same time over her already sock-ed feet>
Me: Push with all your might, Maggie!
Maggie: I don’t have any might left!
#wintertruths
I finally have a pair of cross-country skis. One step closer to being a real Minnesotan. (Ice fishing next year?) We went out as a family on Tuesday, after our first real snow, and then I went again on Thursday morning on my own. It’s a short, easy trail at Highland golf course, but I’m an unsteady amateur, so it’s exactly what I need.
Today marks our first morning of the season with significant ice outside. We’ve had a few frosts and light glazes, but nothing you could slide around on. Griffin, Maggie, Zoe, and Cedar had a blast sliding around before the older kids caught the bus to school. On our walk back to the house, Maggie suggested that I take a picture to send to Mama (who is in iceless San Diego). Good thinking!
Spring break = five epic days of adventure at the cabin.
(And time to serialize the experience!)
Our adventures began as we drove up the dirt road to the cabin and discovered a section covered with thick ice. The culvert under the road had frozen solid so a marshy stream began trickling over the road. In the course of the winter it produced a few feet of thick, glacier-like ice. (It had the same blue color associated with glacial ice.) This was only a mild obstacle due to loss of traction until we encountered the crevasse—water had cut a channel directly across the road, easily two feet deep. On our way in we didn’t spot it in time and jolted across it. If it had been any wider, it would have been bad news. As it was, it just gave the shocks a workout. (A neighboring cabin owner with sharper eyes turned back rather than trusting his car to make it.) On our way out on Monday we laid logs inside it to provide support for the tires.
One of our main goals this trip was to cross Spring Lake and to continue exploring the trails on the south bank. (I would link to a post about our January skiing and snowshoeing adventures, but I haven’t posted it yet. Must remedy that soon.) Unfortunately, the lake ice was thinning and we weren’t brave enough to cross. We saw some ice fishermen out on our first day, so we assumed it was solid, but upon scouting we found too many dicey areas for comfort. Hearing the ice loudly crack beneath my feet sent me scurrying for shore. With the warming weather the lake remained vocal throughout the trip, providing a soundtrack of otherworldly groans, crystalline pops and cracks, and occasional booming detonations.
Deciding to remain on the north shore, we went on some extended hikes, including one where we left the trail and bushwhacked for a few hours. We clambered over (and under) fallen trees, examined fairy doors on mossy tree trunks, debated the origin of animal spoor, and got remarkably confused about our location. (Google Maps, of course, sorted things out for us, but we were astonished at how quickly the unfamiliar landscape threw off our direction sense once we left the trail.) The pictures below, from a few different hikes, don’t do justice to the beauty. Click on any image to see a larger version with the option of viewing all of them as a slideshow.
A beautiful day for skating outside! I’m so proud of my new skaters.
We didn’t let a little snow and frigid temperatures interfere with our Thanksgiving Bocce game. Grandpa Jeff got out the snow blower and made us a court. The teams:
We played to 11, and it was close to the very end. In the final round, 10-9, team 2 landed the clinching point. They simply had superior mastery of snow-braking techniques.
On the Roy side, the bocce tradition began at a rental house in Fort Bragg, California, on the Mendocino coast. We used to rent the place for Thanksgiving in the early 2000s, inviting friends and family for feast and fun. Here are two pictures from that era (with a slightly different climate!):
Clearing out a backlog of winter photos. Click for larger versions.
I love finding gems like this on neighborhood walks. What a cool idea. Wish I’d seen it when it was fresh.
After a week of sub-zero temperatures, we enjoyed a weekend of balmy weather — highs in the 30s on Saturday, and in the high 40s today! Real spring is still a long way off, but today was our first hint of what’s to come. It was a perfect afternoon for snowballs and puddle stomping.
