The Big Thaw

Another day of sledging last Saturday, we had the hill to ourselves which was great (as sometimes Dan has the habit of barreling towards people). We also got a snow tube (fancy term for a rubber ring with a sealed base). It was warm enough that Andy really enjoyed it and we stayed out for a good while.


On Sunday for the first time in about 6 weeks it went above freezing so we made the most of it by going out for walks and playing in the park. It reached about 3 degrees C which means no hats or gloves!


Getting chillier again this week, in the paper they actually summarise the weather for Wednesday as 'character building cold'.

We had to give back the car that someone from church lent us so we bought another car yesterday. The next door neighbours, Mary and Wes, are really well connected and they are friends with Dan Luther, who is heir to the Luther Autombile chain of 25 large dealerships in Minnesota. So anyway, we got a very good deal and are going to take it for a drive to St Croix Falls.

The drive to St Croix was the first time we've seen lots of people out ice-fishing - for those not aquainted with this strictly northern pastime, ice-fishing consists of sitting in a little hut on a frozen lake and fishing through a little drilled out hole. The actual purpose of ice fishing is not, as you may first imagine, to catch fish (though that is an outcome for sure), rather to escape the wife and kids and to drink beer with your mates. Though it sounds an extreme form of escape, the discomfort is less than you may think as people typically drag a well equipped hut out with their 4x4. Check out this picture for a distant shot of some ice-fishing going on.

The rest of this post consists of another compare and contrast exercise in weather. See if you can spot Dan in this picture (you may need to blow it up).
Did you spot him? He was having a lie-down on the lake in the background.

We spent ages on the lake and the area around, it's been one of my favourite things so far, walking out over the lake, taking a lie-down - really peaceful.

What wasn't peaceful was taking Dan on a walk near the cliffs of the gorge, no matter how many times we rearranged words 'Fall You'll And Not Careful If Dead Be You're' we had to resort to being 'handcuffed' to me for most of the walk.