Winter Activities

Well, much has happened since I last wrote you. Where to begin?
First, I did sign up for the John Beargrease Dog Sled Race. Of course, I am not running a team in the race (some of you guys cracked me up), but I am working at headquarters answering phones and taking down times off the ham radios. Check out their website if you want to find out more about the race (http://www.beargrease.com/). Basically, the race is over 300 miles along the north shore of Lake Superior. There are checkpoints along the way where the time is radioed into HQ. Should be interesting. I wish I could watch the beginning of the race, as I hear it is very moving and emotional, but I will be at HQ, which is nowhere near the beginning of the race. I will let you know how it all goes.
Early in Feb, we went to our first University men's hockey game. Actually two of them. It was great. The place is packed, and the stadium has very steep seating, so it seems like everyone has a good view. And they are FAST. Their skating skills are amazing. My favorite player is the goalie (must stem from my obsession with Ray LeBlanc from the 1992 Olympic Games...he was the first goalie to wear the highly decorative ITech masks...(http://www.wrightmask.com/rayleblancusathumb.jpg)). How they know where the puck is boggles my mind. I don't even know where the puck is half the time, which explains why they have a light and horn to indicate a goal.
I did my first winter sport this past weekend.....ice skating. My sister-in-law, niece and I went to Play It Again Sports, a used sporting goods store and bought used ice skates. Then we went down to Bayfront Park, right along Lake Superior. Unfortunately, we had a heat wave that day, about 40, so the ice was horrible. Super horrible. Funny enough, the warming house was "Closed due to extreme weather" (extreme?????). You would skate smoothly, and then jerk to a stop on a rough patch. Funnier yet was the water that would shoot out from the ice as you skated over it. We had a hard time explaining to my niece, Maddi, who is 3 years old that we weren't on a lake, just a flooded field. She would panic when the water would shoot out. To put it mildly, I am a horrible skater. I haven't skated in 20 years and it shows. Again, another reason to be impressed by ice skaters and hockey players.
While we were out skating, Clay and his brothers were snowmobiling. While Kari, Maddi and I were having dinner, we got a call from them on the trail requesting a pick up in Tower, MN (about 90 miles north of Duluth). Clay had broken his collar bone and they were 10 miles out of Tower. So we ran around, checked mapquest and drove up there. They were able to ride to Benchwarmers, an eatery/bar (with about 50 snowmobiles parked outside), which is where we found them. They left the sleds there and we all made the trip back to Duluth and St. Luke's Hospital. Clay is okay, but he is very sore and it is hard to move around much. He is still teaching his classes, which is a good sign. They just gave him a sling which he has to wear for 4 weeks.
Well, I wanted to leave you with some information about Lake Superior. This lake is amazing. It really has so many stories to tell. It is the second largest lake in the world and the deepest of the Great Lakes. What fascinates me is the number of shipwrecks found in Lake Superior. One in particular is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down on November 10, 1975. There is a great song by Gordon Lightfoot about the disaster. Check out http://home.europa.com/~random7/fitz.htm to see the lyrics and annotation. If you have the time, try and listen to it (you will need 6 minutes of your time...its a long one), but if not, just sing every two lines, and drawl out the last word of every two lines. He kind of speaks it instead of singing, so you can get the idea. Apparently, the water is so cold that those who are lost at sea never surface to the top. The last four lines are spooky:
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior they said never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early
This is why they say Lake Superior is haunted, and there are lots of books out there on the topic.
Well, I hope all is well wherever you're at.
Take care,

Ice Dams

Well, it has been awhile since my last letter, so I thought I would drop everyone a line. In the last two weeks we have had 20 inches of snow, but a small melting off due to the higher temps (high twenties). Of course, with all this melting comes the evil ice dam. What, you may ask, is an ice dam? Well, it has been quite an education for me as well. The definition of an ice dam, from www.homedirect.com/glossary is :
A condition which can occur with snow and freezing conditions. When snow or ice melts on a roof over a heated or partially heated attic space, the melting water may refreeze over an unheated areas such as a roof overhang. This re-frozen water may create a "dam" and allow additional melt water to back up under shingles and cause leaks (Illustration "A"). Solutions include: proper roof venting and insulation (Illustration "B"), membrane roofing or roofing underlayment, and heat tapes. Once an ice dam occurs, remedies are difficult and or dangerous. Working on a frozen roof should be avoided, as should the use of any open flames. The use of hot water to melt the ice may help, it may also increase the amount of leakage.
Well, we have one of these, and the ice has worked its way into our attic above the bathroom. Very strange. Water and ice are forces to be reckoned with. Clay had been continually raking the roof (he bought a roof rake....see
http://www.plowhearth.com/plow_assets/images/shop/catalog/8593.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.plowhearth.com/product.asp%3Fsection_id%3D2005%26department%3D3006%26search_type%3Dcategory%26search_value%3D3120%26pcode%3D8006&h=253&w=230&sz=20&tbnid=63E0pMoJP24J:&tbnh=106&tbnw=96&start=12&prev=/images%3Fq%3Droof%2Brake%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN if you need a real mental picture), but it got so warm one day that there was a lot of melting and refreezing before he got home from work. I am not a roof raker.
I have been acclimating rather well to the weather here. Less of the hats and scarves. It really decreases the time it takes to get ready if you don't need those. Of course, my new coat really helps. I got the Lands' End Belted Down Parka in Antique Ivory (http://www.landsend.com/cd/fp/prod/0,,1_2_1930_2330_109214_87661_5:view=59,00.html?sid=4006181615566110010), and it is very warm. My wool pea coat was not cutting it. Too many places for wind to sneak into. I now know why hoods have fur or fake fur on them...they really help keep the snow out of your eyes when it is snowing. It is also good down to -15 without layers and -35 with layers. My kind of jacket.
New find in the grocery store: Lefsa (http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe/shoppe.asp?cat=4&subcat=Breads). Not very tasty although someone told me storebought Lefsa isn't very good. I would call it a triangular tortilla made out of potato. You are supposed to spread butter on it, sprinkle with sugar and eat.
Take care and hope everyone is well.

Skirt Weather

Today I decided to wear a skirt to my internship. Better to take advantage of the good weather while I can right? Of course, everything is relative and my nice weather is 12 degrees above zero. We have had a little cold snap over the past five days and this is the first day we are above zero, so get out the party hats. We have had lows in the -25s, to highs in the -1s. So you can see why I am jumping for joy...of course, I am wearing tights...I'm not that brave, although I did see a UMD student wearing flip flops one day. Brrrrrr.
Well, I have started my internship at the University Library, about 15 hours per week. I have a sweet little office (until they hire someone to fill it), a phone line and e-mail address. I have been spending time with the librarians going over their resources of choice and going to meetings. The university was wonderfully smart when they decided to build here. They have tunnels connecting to everything and everywhere. The union is only 5 minutes from the library and Clay's office is just 5 minutes farther from that. You can go to the gym, class, the food court and the dorm and never step outside. Pretty smart if you ask me. Parking is a real issue here (yes, even in Minnesota), but I seemed to find one right away, on this first day of classes.
Today was a typical day...I dropped off Clay at work in the morning, without any crashes or spin outs. Our rear wheel drive truck has provided many challenging opportunities that involve lots of white knuckled moments. In Iowa it was flat. Here it is hilly, not that hilly, but hilly enough to make it a challenge sometimes to even get home. I just usually close my eyes when we head up a hill after a snow. On our way to a New Year Eve's party, we had to call our hosts and ask for another route to their house. We just couldn't make it up this one hill. We were seriously sliding down backwards at about 10mph. Luckily no one was parked in the street that day. We were directed to another, less steep hill, and if we backed down the street enough, we could get a good running start. I find myself chanting "I think you can" to the truck on many occasions.
After dropping off Clay, I proceeded to clean the floors. In CA, even IA, I didn't find this a hugely necessary job, but here it is. The combination of grit, sand and salt that they use on the roads creates a little concotion they like to call snirt. It gets everywhere. I feel like I am at the beach sometimes, walking around in all this sand. The dog doesn't help either, especially when he comes in from a romp covered in dreadlocks of snow. He looks like one of those mountain climbers with ice all over their face. And he just looks at us like their is nothing wrong at all.
Well, I haven't done anything much of interest yet. Still working myself up to doing anything that requires extra energy. The dog sled races are coming up in February and I am thinking of signing up for those. Hope to try cross country skiing soon as well as curling. I will keep you posted.
Sunshine