Bottle Rocket War week started off with some clouds, little wind, and above normal temperatures.
On Monday, snow wall forms, shovels, and other assorted construction bric-a-brac were taken out of storage and trudged to the lake.
Sunsets come too early in January, cutting into fort building time.
Early sunsets turned out to be the least of the troubles at the start of the week. Warmer temperatures and rain kept the construction crew benched.
By Wednesday, the cold came back, but the lake snow was either blowing around as snow devils or frozen in hard lumps. It's not impossible to make forts with this gritty material, but it's tough.
Late in the week, Lucerne got 4.5 inches of great building snow. Huzzah!
Before the snow, the men worked on one wall for an entire day.
The result was traumatizing.
After the snow, some came out to watch the forts go up and to raid bird feeders.
It looks like the north end's turkeys are back.
It took only half a day to finish off the southern fort.
Fueled by only a short lunch break, the north fort was done just before sunset.
Guns, view ports, and bits of flair were added on Saturday just hours before the event.
The event started just after 6:00 PM.
The forts were about 50 feet apart. Flat shots were very effective.
It got a little smokey during the height of the event.
The event settled into its own rhythm with one side firing off a barage.
And then the other side responding in kind.
The entire event consumed just over 2,000 rockets and lasted about 40 minutes.
Sunday morning was filled with single digit cold and battle damage assessments.
Shots from the northern fort were amazingly accurate this year.
The space between the forts was littered with rockets that didn't make the distance or bounced off the snow armor.
The southern fort had some pretty good shots, too.
The fresh snow walls were soft enough to allow many rockets to "stick".
The final task was the clean-up. Plucking out the polycarbonate windows went quicky and smoothly.
Picking up all the sticks will take a little longer.
Returning all the construction utensils was done before hypothermia became a thing.
Knott Lane's condition could be described as crispy and squeeky.
That was fun. An added bonus was the main camera's intervalometer. It worked and managed a few good images (15 second exposures at F1.4) before batteries succumbed to the cold. It turns out you can fly a drone and operate a camera to take video while maintaining a good rate of bottle rocket fire. The videos will be posted on the front page this week. Today's forecasted high will not get to 0°F. Picking up the remaining sticks is gonna be a bit of an ordeal.
