A Superior Weekend

No, I didn't race...I visited my parents at our cabin--now their year-round home--on Lake Superior (see what I did there?).  Keira and I left the Hubster home to tend the home fires, and headed north for a fun and relaxing weekend with my parents and their four dogs.

Lake Superior is beautiful any time of year and in any weather, but I hadn't seen it in late winter in a few years.  This was the view out the window from the dining room table the first day:

By the next morning a vast sheet of ice slowly drifted across the water from the East, and by noon there was almost no open water to be seen.  Then overnight, the ice shifted against itself and produced a long ridge of window-pane slabs of ice all jumbled together; as I watched from the breakfast table, I could see piles of the sheets of ice sliding and tumbling as the ice completed its final movement to close the one remaining open channel. Here's my attempt to capture the beauty:

Oops--doggy photobomb!

Of course, with 5 dogs around, it was hard to get a picture without at least one of them in it!  The littlest dog, Bumpe ("Boompa") had been neutered on (of all things) Valentine's day, and was under strict "no rough housing" orders from the vet.  He spent much of his time banished to a high chair that he couldn't jump out of:

He's not impressed.

Of course, there were walks:

...and photo opps with Keira the WonderDog:

Isn't she adorable?

For my one workout of the weekend, I planned to go cross country skiing at Pincushion Mountain in Grand Marais.  My cousin and his family were also at the cabin, and they thought they might go to Pincushion as well.  But first, my cousin wanted to do a little "bushwhacking" ski tour of the cabin property.  So we set out, over the river logs and through the woods.  All was well until I felt a strange floppiness in my right foot.  A closer look showed that the plastic cuff on my ski boot had fractured into several pieces.  By the time I wobbled back through the woods (and over a couple more logs) the boot looked like this:

Clearly, I would do no more skating skiing on this boot.  By this time my cousin had decided to take his family on a ski tour of the cabin rather than go to Pincushion, but I was already in my ski clothes, I wanted to ski...and besides, I needed to head into town to get a Sven and Ole's frozen pizza for dinner anyway. So I threw my skis into the car and went to Grand Marais, where the nice guys at Stone Harbor saved the day by renting me some boots:

Thanks, guys!

So I went to Pincushion and had a great ski...perfect trails...

...light snowfall, and beautiful woods.  And one fall and two blisters, but hey, I wasn't complaining.

I was focusing so much on taking the picture that I forgot to smile.

So it was a great weekend.  Of course, my legs are sore from the skiing, and the blisters still hurt...but I love hanging out with my parents, and Lake Superior is, of course, the most beautiful body of water in the world. I'll leave you with some gratuitous dog and lake pictures...because I can.