Two Below Zero, Clear Skies, Spectacular Sun Rise

7:25

Breaking a Trail

Snow Shoeing Westside Overland Trail

A Frosting of Forests

Puffs of Snow

Blue Skies

Cathedral of Snow Pines

Up at 6:30, some light already and cold, cold, cold.  And no wonder, as I just checked the temperature and it's below zero, the coldest it has been this year.  When it  gets this cold, the house tends to creak, the radiators clang a bit, as if in revolt to the cold.  Last night was a clear star filled sky, perfect weather for a cold morning.  Right now, the sun is invading my living room, blinding me, forcing me to move my seat, something that has not happened in weeks.  A morning sun is rare on winter mornings here at the lake.  Despite the cold, I cannot wait to  get out on the lake, cross country skiing or snow shoeing.

My Saturdays don't change much, yoga, early at 9:00, about six of us, working on doing a proper front and back bend, so as to avoid problems with the lower back.  I think I am getting it.  Then, coffee at Ryder's Cup, then home, to gather the trash and off to the Transfer Station.  When I returned home, my neighbor, Becky Deault, was having trouble getting her car out of her drive.  So Evie and I went down and shoveled her drive way and walk, helping her extricate her car from the snow.  As we finished,  Mary Ann Miller and her son Tom drove in from State College, so we helped shovel their drive so they could get in.  What good neighbors.

The afternoon was sunny, with a blue sky, in the 20's so inviting that we had to got snow shoeing.  We drove to a just east of Sherman, where we got on the West Side Overland Trail, one we have walked many times.  The parking lot was snow filled, so we had to park on the side of the road.  We wended out way through a foot and a half deep snow to the trail, and it was a wonderful but rigorous walk through the snow filled forest.  It was like walking through a woods frosted with icing, every tree, every branch seemed to have snow spread on it.  Branches, heavy with snow, hung over the trail, as we broke the trail, the first to walk it that week.  Snow shoeing was also made more difficult as I counted at least 13 trees down, crossing our trail, making it difficult to navigate at times.  We walked just about a mile out, taking forty five minutes, the walk back much easier, as we had blazed a trail out, and it took us only thirty five minutes.  We both love walking in these snow filled woods, wish we could do it every day.  We may have another chance today, but it's warming up later, so we had better take advantage of it.

For dinner, we went out with the Millers, to the Docks Restaurant in Mayville, the other side of the Lake View Bar.  Unfortunately, we were the only patrons in the place, even the bar was empty of people.  The snowmobiliers were next store in the Lake View Bar.  We did have decent meals, walleye or perch dinners, and we had fun catching up on all the news from State College.  Tom and his Mom are fun to be with, so it was a good evening.  We were home by 8:30, just in time to watch some TV before going up to bed to read, then sleep, a good day.  We were both tired from our snow shoeing, our legs sore, the good kind of soreness, from having been physical.

It's almost 8:00 and lots of fishermen are out on the lake, despite the cold.  No wind probably makes it bearable.  We will be out there soon, cross country skiing. Just as I finish this, two fishermen who went out fishing off of Victoria have just packed up and returned to shore.  Perhaps it is too cold out there even for the intrepid fishermen.