Ooooh Pretty Blue Ice!
Posted on February 5th, 2010 by laurie
We really wanted to take Canyon, wrap him in a blanket and lay him in the middle of the ice and pretend he was Baby Superman on Kal-El. But it was too cold out.
We really wanted to take Canyon, wrap him in a blanket and lay him in the middle of the ice and pretend he was Baby Superman on Kal-El. But it was too cold out.
Sunrise was pretty mellow. We stay in the same room every year and always make fun of this chainsaw bear which to me is more of a chainsaw bigfoot. We are creating a new tradition of taking a picture of Canyon with the thing to show how much he has grown.
It was time to leave our little Bluefin Bay retreat and head back to Duluth. About fifteen minutes in to the trip we saw a wolf!
Of course I didn’t have my zoom lens on…
Gooseberry Falls really was impressive. I wish I had those ice tread things so I could have gone further in.
I was happy to be able to see at least one frozen waterfall since all of my hiking trails were so slippery.
Hump Day lunch Buffet at Sven & Ole’s. I think half the population of Grand Marais was there. Oh that pizza is good but really, the star of the show as the Tater Tot Hot Dish. It was ridiculous. I wanted to just take the whole pan back to the table.
Then we had fun with tripod family portraits. Really need to get one of those remote clicker things.
Hit the Grand Marais thrift store and some lattes.
We drove all the way to the Canadian Border. Just for fun. We looked for moose. Didn’t find any. We looked for Bigfoot. Didn’t find any.
Still had fun.
And found the road I want to live on…
Part of the joy of these trips is our rooms on the lake.
No matter how little sleep I have had, how late or early Canyon kept us awake, no matter how cold it is-I still get up and out for the sunrise.
February 3 in Tofte, MN.
When I was walking around down by the Cascade River I heard this little shrill rattlesnake meets woodpecker call and tried to figure out where it was coming from. Then I looked up at the tree and there was the funniest little red squirrel staring at me.
He seemed very intent on talking to me, chatting and squealing as I stood there and talked to him.
I liked to think he was saying, “who are you? who are you? I have a pine cone! I have a pine cone!”
He would race up to a foot or so from my face and then squeak and run back to the trunk of the tree.
I invited him to come home with us but he declined. He had his pine cone and that was all he needed. Oh if life could be so simple.
We just couldn’t accept the fact that all of the hiking trails were skating rinks and attempted to make it around the Cascade River State Park. We made it about 1/2 a block in before admitting defeat and picked and slid our way back to the car. It didn’t get us down though.
We watched the deer for a bit before heading off into the sunset. Literally.
This is Canyon’s “Are you done taking pictures yet?” face.
Monday night we headed down the road to Temperance River State Park. We have been going there for years, but every time we were here the snow was so deep the trails were impassable. We would usually just throw the ball for Lilo and peek through the spruce and birch to catch a glimpse of the lake. This year there isn’t a whole lotta snow so we were pretty pyched to head down the trail to the lake. OK, I was psyched. John wasn’t going to brave the ice while carrying Canyon and opted to stay up above.
Lilo was leashed to avoid being wolf bait so she had no choice but to follow me on my suicide mission. ‘
I held on to trees and made it almost all the way down before taking that one wrong step and hitting the ground. It was one of those slow motion, controlled slips, where you know you’re going down and instead of fighting it you just go with it. This is also my technique for driving on black ice, just steer into the skid and try to minimize the damage. So I went down, but it wasn’t so bad. I had to slide down the rest of the trail on my butt but it was cool. Get it? Slid on ice, COOL? Ha!
The light was fading as Lilo and I found another trail up the hill back to where John and Canyon were waiting. This path seemed much more passable and I decided that we would all go back for sunrise the next day.
Well that didn’t happen but after breakfast Lilo and I decided to go hike around by ourselves for awhile and headed back to the park. A light dusting of snow had fallen and while it made things pretty, it also made them deadly. I tried going to the same way I had the night before and Lilo was having none of it. I finally took her advice and agreed that it was too steep and icy to make it down that way. So we headed back around another way and found a clear set of stairs to the water. Made it down and took about two steps on the snow before realizing too late that I was on clear ice. Boom goes the Laurie! I hit the ice so hard that my hat and sunglasses flew about 3 feet. Luckily my ample bottom provided enough padding that I wasn’t injured. I did leave a nice imprint on the ground though.
Lilo was freaked out by the fall and her I told you so look said, “have you had enough? Can we please go now?”, and started back up the stair mountain.
I had to agree with her and followed grumpily along. When we got to the top of the stairs I saw a car idling in one of the plowed paths with a single man in it. I had that moment of “oh crap this is where my life turns into a Lifetime movie moments.” He read my look and gave me the “don’t worry, I am not a rapist serial killer!” wave. I smiled and nodded, but what I was really thinking is, “what, a rapist serial killer wouldn’t wave and smile before sneaking up behind you and dragging you kicking and screaming to his trunk?”
