The One With the Late Season Soaker

I'm no arborist, but there's one pine on the Bar's lawn that looks un-well. It's green and all, but its stem looks a little off.

The snow amounts were not deep enough to force us to wear sandwich boards and decry a Snowpocalypse, but it was enough to thoroughly cover the roads.

The snow melted and then froze. Nothing gets the blood pumping like depressing the brake and, aside from hearing the ABS buzz, nothing. Bonus points are awarded to the driver that can coolly explain to children sliding with them about the nature of Newton's 1st law of motion. Seeing the understanding in their little faces as the driver gently explains that just because friction is not an option for slowing, other forces can come to the rescue. Hills, more specifically going UP hill, can effectively bleed off speed, as can trees or oncoming traffic. Depending on the velocity, the topic of religion or prayer may come up along with the importance of bringing along a change of underwear.

Now you would think that, with the single digit cold at the start of the week, that the ice on the lake would be pretty thick. It's not as thick as you'd think.

The previous week's wind storm had broken up some of the ice on the North end, but the small open spots froze over pretty quickly. To avoid the ice slab that was formerly called Knott Lane, I chose to walk on the snow covered lake ice along the shore.

The first few 100 feet went well. One step in about 2 feet of water, not so much. When the top of a boot goes under, the waterproof nature of the rest of the footwear doesn't really matter. After scrambling out and taking a picture of the boot shaped hole, the rest of the trip was soggy and without further incident.