Rampant and Unrepentant Silliness

It was warm last weekend, here in Minnesota. Twenty-or-so above normal. Which means upper fifties. Warm, sunny, breezy: spring was in high gear and we responded in kind.

Rambling through town, we saw many folks out in shorts or capris, and a few uber-exuberant souls in t-shirts too. A few wore sandals but, really, the plethora of muddy puddles meant that sandals were kept to a minimum.

Admittedly, most of the people wearing shorts and capris were under 20. And we older and wiser ones could look at them and say, "Well that's just silly. It's not that warm."

No, Gabi and I did not wear shorts. We wore jeans, turtlenecks and flannel shirts, sturdy tennies. 

Yes, this is what we wore when we took our kayaks out for a drive.

There is open water, here and there, on the Sauk, Platte and Mississippi rivers. The trick is finding an open stretch between landings. The water's way too high and quick to paddle back upstream if you don't have to. But, oh, we wanted to be on the water.

Fortunately, when we went out to Cold Spring on Sunday to scope out the Sauk, we met the wife of a man who was bravely setting off from Frogtown Park for the six-mile float to the next public landing in Rockville. We jumped for muddy joy to see someone setting off, and Monday (we both took the day off) we were back with kayaks in the truck. We stopped in Rockville to leave the car so that we could shuttle ourselves.

We were smart enough to check the landing. 

An ice bar swooped out from the landing, still covering half the river. We walked a little upstream and down, where the ice had receded. We could see where a person could land, muddily, but no signs that anyone actually had landed his canoe.

In other words, somewhere along the line, the ice still covered the river thick and wide enough that our brave canoe enthusiast hadn't gotten through. We went back to the truck, looked at the map. Was the dam at the heron colony, or where the river bends back on itself at mile three, or at the gorgeous boulder garden after the ninety-degree turn at mile four?

Regardless, we wouldn't be floating down the river, not yet.

We got back on the road, me in the car and Gabi in the truck, and headed back to town. I saw her swear out loud in the cab and called on the cell phone to tell her. We laughed about being twenty feet apart and talking on the phone to each other. So we had to wave some more.

Neither of us could stand to let the day go by without a little exploring, so we stopped at Grande Depot, a fantastic shop where I94 and Highway 23 intersect. The Depot is full of gourmet treats, lovely cookware and dishes, artisan candles, handmade jewelry... you get the idea. Very fun. If you're in the neighborhood and need to find a special gift for someone, The Depot would be at the top of my list of recommendations.

We bought a bottle of very yummy dipping oil and, a few miles later, bought some good bread to go along with. Then we went home, put our plastic chairs on the sunny patio on the south of the house, and had a snack. It wasn't what we really, really, wanted to be doing, but it was good all the same.

Pic attribution: Image: "Colors" http://www.flickr.com/photos/13238706@NOO/2730411175