Winter Fest 2008

The snowmobiles were buzzing all day today, and the snow sculptures were finished, and there were a zillion people on the lake... it must be Winter Fest time yet again. It's the high point of my whole winter.... or rather it just reminds me that I live in a tiny town and this is the kind of thing that gets these people through another interminable winter.

Thus, I bundled up in 1,781 layers of clothes and went out to the frozen lake to watch the fireworks. This year I picked a great spot only about 100 yards from where they were going to shoot them off.

First, I contemplated this sign. Does this make any sense to you? Me neither. What's the point of having an ice fishing shack if you don't have a hole in it to fish with?


Then I watched several cars, half a dozen snowmobiles and a police car with its blue lights drive out onto the ice, and in a few minutes the first fireworks went off.


The neatest thing about being on a frozen lake when these go off is that they echo like you wouldn't believe. They sound like the shotguns that go off in the fall (another fun small-town pastime) but even bigger-- as if someone's using a cannon instead of a 12-gauge to kill a deer.

And the moment we have all been waiting for, the grand finale:


And lastly, here are some very pink feet.