Snowacane Katrina

So, I'm a little behind the times as everyone and their brother have talked about the dumping that Duluth got. I spent Thursday through Sunday at the Northwoods Fiber Retreat which I run so all I know is that I left Duluth on Thursday morning to drive to Sturgeon Lake. If you could see beyond the whiteness, there was a road and there were a few cars on it. In fact, there was a semi in front of me and one behind, assuring me that if my car went into a skid, my death would be quick if not painless.

So, camp was snowy.






















And the icicles were beautiful















And when the kitchen staff was snowed in at their homes, we "helped" the camp director make lunch






















But mostly we knitted, laughed, ate, and had a grand old time.




















My only problem occured when I left camp to take my daughter down to the cities for her Saturday art class. I got her there ok, there was actually less snow on the road then the previous weekend, and the problem happened when I went on a little "explore" when she was in her class.

I wanted to go to a neighborhood that has a great bookstore that I had been to previously. There was also a yarn store next to the bookstore that I had had a bad experience at in the past and I wanted to give it one more try.

All of this took me into a neighborhood that accommodates approximately 5,000 of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. This is just an estimate, there may be more than that.

My Yahoo directions told me that it was exactly 5 miles from where I dropped my daughter off. I then proceeded to get lost on an endless sea (or should I say lake?) of one way streets. Not only one way streets, but streets where I had no ability to turn around due to the 100 foot tall snow piles that had been artfully placed in just such a way as to obscure the most view with the maximum amount of claustrophobia. (And for all you precious, precious people down in the cities that say "We had so much snow that of course the snow removal crews had to pile it that high, stop complaining!" Well baby, up here in Duluth we actually tunnel these huge drifts out and sell them as winter tourist housing. Yuppie tourists will buy anything to get back to "nature". We then collapse the roofs, allow the winter tourists to freeze, and then we feast off their well-preserved bodies. I have not had to buy meat for several winters now.)

Sorry about that but after driving around those frickin' lakes for ONE AND A HALF HOURS, becoming more and more frantic that I wouldn't be able to get back to my daughter in time for the end of her class, I consulted my road map.







Well, there's your problem!





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