Eight lake tour

Today's wind was strong from the northwest so I set out for the first time this season on the eight lake tour. When you ride north into a strong wind the turning point where you put the wind behind you is a welcome waypoint. The northern route turns back at Highway 96. Here is a view of the creek flowing out of some lake in North Oaks and down into Sucker Lake. The view is from just south of the Highway 96 bridge.Perhaps you can see that the lake down there is open water.

The lakes, like all bodies of water, are high now, high even for this time of year. I was reminded of that by this spot, which as I have detailed at least a couple of times before, was a softball field when I first started riding out there.The back stop and infield were right over there between the two pine trees on the opposite shore. For any foresters who might be tuned in I am fairly sure those are actual capital P pine trees, not the fairly common usage of pine as a generic term for any evergreen. I did not actually go over there and examine the trees but there were a couple on my side of the field that looked very similar and I am confident in identifying those near me as red pine based on the characteristic reddish bark.

I spent most of the ride thinking that today's post would be about ice out. It was 72 and windy yesterday and although I am NOT a lake hydrologist I am confident that warm and windy are conditions conducive to advancing lake ice out. And in fact, every lake I rode by was iceless until I arrived at the jewel of the northern lakes, Lake Vadnais. This photo is about half way down the lake traveling north to south. The north half of the lake was open with the NW wind starting to pile the remaining ice up on the south half.I know that at least one of my regular readers (TOPWLH) will visit Lake Vadnais at least several times this year and that she will be interested in this view taken from the edge of the parking area nearer to the south side.Interestingly enough, the west lobe of the twin lake was ice free. The east side is larger and more sheltered from yesterday's mostly east wind. It still has some ice but my guess is that it will be gone tomorrow. In fact, it may be gone by now. While standing there it sounded like someone was swirling crushed ice in a giant punch bowl. The ice was already mostly chips and the sound that it made was charming and interesting.

There has been quite a hubbub of late about the closing of the "iconic" Porky's Drive-In on University Avenue in Saint Paul. It is therefore somewhat surprising that there hasn't been even a single peep that i am aware of about this. The A&W Drive-In on Rice Street is closed.I know a lot of people are enamored of Porky's, mostly I think because of the cool sign. As a young person I never went to Porky's. Porky's was not within a couple of hundred miles of where I lived. But I went to an A&W a bunch of times. The news articles about the closing of Porky's went on and on about the cheeseburgers and onion rings. Well, fine, I suppose, but for me the drive-in experience is about root beer floats and A&W is THE quintessential root beer float. The closing of one of the last A&W's is, again, for me, a much bigger deal.

Just as an aside here, A&W is THE drink it out of the mug draft root beer. My preference in bottled root beer has always been Dad's.

Today's final image, a wooly bear caterpillar.This particular wooly bear will never be an Isis butterfly as very shortly after this photo opportunity the caterpillar met its demise at the hands of a City of Shoreview truck. That's what happens when you play in traffic.

Everyone be careful out there.