Tag Archives: snow

A tag-along day on Lake Bemidji

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I tagged along with Bethany today as she covered Polar Daze for the Pioneer. I figured it would make a cold outdoor activity more fun for both of us, as well as give us a rare opportunity to do some walking.

A brisk half-hour walk before the Brrrmidji Polar Plunge worked out well for us; while we were ice-cold earlier, by the time of the Plunge, it wasn’t so bad. We were at  least done complaining that even our foreheads were cold. I had grumbled that it felt like someone was injecting frozen Botox into my forehead.

But we had it made, compared to the more than 100 people who jumped, walked, cannonballed, belly-flopped, somersaulted, tumbled and in whatever other ways plunged into a giant hole in Lake Bemidji.

One of the coolest things about watching the Brrrmidji Plunge is how the faces change as the plungers enter the water.

Above, we see a happy pair of kids, but as the boy hits the water, a look of shock and disbelief takes over. The girl, meanwhile, is still smiling. That’s because, in the second photo Bethany shot, she has yet to hit the water.

It didn’t take any of the jumpers long to clear out of the water and head for their trailers to dry off and change clothes.

This was the happiest reaction I think I’ve ever seen in a jumper. I have witnessed a few stoic reactions and he-man responses, but I’m not used to people looking *happy*. This guy,  Scott, looked like he’d just won a race. He was pumped. He even looked cheerful as he walked across the ice to the guys’ trailer.

It wouldn’t be the Brrrmidji Plunge without the Bemidji firefighters jumping in together. The first time I saw this event, I was late getting there, and I actually met the firefighters on the sidewalk as they ran from the lake to the Bemidji Fire Department at Fifth Street and America Avenue after their jump.  I wished that day that I’d had a camera, because that run is part of the tradition, too.

With Bemidji’s Paul Bunyan celebrating his 75th birthday all year, it was fitting the iconic lumberjack would make the plunge. Paul, also known as Dr. Mike Headlee of Explore Chiropractic, jumped last year as well, flinging the stuffed Babe the Blue Ox into the water ahead of him then, too. But this year Paul was joined by his wife, Lucette, as illustrated in folklore in Hackensack. They carried a brightly wrapped birthday present, as well as a birthday cupcake Lucette (Lorrie Richardson) handed off just before she jumped.

Jumpers seemed to come out of the woodwork, from solo artists to groups of friends, family members and co-workers.  Some were seasoned veterans of this event, while others did it for the first time.

“It’s overrated,” one man said as he left the trailer after getting dressed. “Once in a lifetime is enough.”

(Zero isn’t so bad, either ….)

My favorite quote Bethany got, and this is more paraphrasing than quoting until I can see her actual article, was from a boy who jumped with his dad and sister: “It was great. I had a lot of fun. I’ll never do it again.”

He seemed to agree with the once-in-a-lifetime guy.

How about you? Have you ever made the leap? If not, would you consider it?

Brrr.

Amazing January

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I stepped outside on Thursday, Jan. 5, and walked into October.

Bethany was on her way to my house to go walking, and I hadn’t put my jacket on yet.  I went outside for a moment in my hoodie and was stunned by the immediate realization that my hoodie keep me plenty warm.

Wow.

We don’t get as many chances to walk as we used to, but this was the best day to do so in a long lines of unseasonably warm days.  The temp was 46 degrees when I got back home, but I later saw in a Pioneer photo that a bank thermometer had read 50 degrees. In January.

What’s really odd for me is that this is my most hated month of the year.  I normally find January to be cold, cruel and depressing.  December is cold, too, but it’s the month of  Christmas.  There are lights and music and business open houses with coffee and cider and cookies, not to mention the family and friends with whom we share the holiday season. January is when it all stops and it just becomes winter.

But this January, it’s been more like fall so far. Granted, we did get some snow Friday, but I still didn’t wear a hat or gloves. In January.

While the snow that started just after Christmas was still on the ground for our walk Thursday, a lot of it was melting, as you can see by this watery sidewalk. You can’t see it in the photo, but the melting snow was glistening all over the house; I thought at first it was the Christmas decorations shining in the sun.

The penguins look happy they finally got snow. I suppose they looked out of place at Christmas!

Bethany not only happily wore her hoodie, too, she also pushed up the sleeves. Here, we were just a few blocks from home.

Not only was it warm, it was a sunny day with blue skies and a bright sun.  It was just a great day to be outside.

Happy January! :)

Sweet snowscape

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Someone was in for a sweet snowy surprise Friday when he or she went out to brush the snow off the car windows.  That pretty red rose produced a nice “awww” moment that briefly made the falling snow feel a little less annoying. I can imagine there was another “awww” from the recipient later. That was sure a sweet gesture!

The scenes looked pretty much the same on Friday’s walk — snowy sidewalks along snowy roads. We reminisced about the trail we won’t see again until next spring, and Bethany complained that being pelted in the face with snowflakes was was like when bugs fly into your mouth — although, obviously, not nearly as unpleasant.

We didn’t *just* complain about the snow …

Downtown, we ran across a couple of fun window scenes. First, there was the skeleton at Headwaters Science Center, still hanging onto summer fun. Then there was the “purse” at Twice But Nice that comes with a hidden electrical cord. As far as we could tell, it’s a lamp or a night night.

If you’ll notice the “I Gave 10″ sign in the Science Center’s window near the skeleton, it refers to the HSC’s fundraising campaign that goes from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15. The Science Center is trying to motivate 4,000 people to give $10 each to secure a matching $40,000 from an anonymous donor. The ultimate goal is to raise $100,000.

See http://www.hscbemidji.org/fundraising.htm for more.

Getting back to the snow, a quick look at the forecast leads me to believe there won’t be much of it for Thanksgiving travel. The temps don’t look too bad, too, with some highs in the low 40s.  We may manage to get a walk or two in this week.

Happy Thanksgiving week. :)

 

 

 

Happy trail to us

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It’s been a long time, trail. It was really great to see you today. Sorry we missed your big show this fall with all the changing colors. I bet it was beautiful. It always is …

This has been a really challenging year in terms of getting out on the trail. We were majorly short-handed at work , we were working in a warehouse during a remodeling project, Bethany gave birth to her second child and I was spending much of my free time helping my elderly parents, who live an hour away.

But I don’t think we ever thought we’d miss so many days. The summer flew by, and fall got busy, and it became easy to skip walking. When we did manage to get together, we stuck to the sidewalks, usually because we didn’t have a lot of time.

It was great to get back on the dirt trail along the lake today, and a lovely day for being outside.

We even saw some green:

And here:

But what really struck me was the pink:

I’ve never seen pink berries. I told Bethany they were as pink as one of her daughter Lola’s princess dresses.

I love pockets of color where we walk, little things you never see in cars. We miss so much when we don’t stop to smell the pink berries and such.

I suppose that would mean more if I actually had stopped to smell the berries. I just don’t think berries have much of a smell. :)

 

No jackets today — we wore our red sweat pants and hoodies. Bethany got warm and took her hoodie off.

Doesn’t this look like a welcoming set of steps to go jump in the lake?

It seemed that while we’d been gone, others had trampled the earth down in the spots that were challenging for us after the bike trail was constructed. In one spot, we used to traverse the trail by a sort of “surfing” method involving some sliding and gripping trees, but that area is more accessible now. We were able to walk all the way through to the end of the trail where it comes out on the back side of the Bemidji State University campus:

We had a beautiful blue sky today, and beautiful blue water on Lake Bemidji:

The days are getting shorter and, usually, cooler. The seagulls and the Canada geese are hanging out in separate corners, probably thinking about getting out of here soon. We wish we could go, too!

But this is the taste of what we have coming, that bit of snow that is finally almost done melting.

We can’t complain too much that it’s snowing in mid-November (we’ve had at least a dusting of snow in October most years), but the longer it waits, the shorter the winter feels.

“Today reminded me just how much I miss walking every day… I totally have to do better. Just leave work.”

Bethany’s words say it all. You have to make time for things like this. When we started walking, in February 2009, it was almost a given that we would walk every day — and that was in weather where it was understandable that we might want to skip a day here and there.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to hit the trail a few more times before the snow comes back to stay.

Have a happy weekend and enjoy what is left of the fall. There’s still green grass out there!

Sunny and Brrrr.

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Today looked like a beautiful day, ghosts and all, but I realized it was pretty cold when I went outside in bare feet to get a pair of sneakers from my car.

“Oh god, it’s cold,” I muttered aloud as I fumbled with the keys and grabbed for the car door. “Really cold. Really, really cold.”

Bethany said later that she would rather have a gloomy warm day than a sunny cold one. I concur.

The ghost caught in the sunshine above served as a clue that what I thought was a popper — those things you fill with gifts or candy and open by pulling at both ends — moments earlier was, Bethany pointed out, likely actually a bat that had fallen off the nearby tree.

Besides, it would not be a very welcome popper, being filled only with leaves.

We stopped by the Fire Hall and ran into firefighter Chris Loebs and his little boy, who I could not coax a smile out of. :) He is looking a bit suspicious here …

As chilly and windy as it was today, it’s nice to see fewer bits of snow every time we go walking. I didn’t notice any snow at all today.

For the pups above, I don’t think the weather mattered. They just like to bark. I couldn’t tell if it was I-want-to-to-lick-your-face barking or I-want-to-bite-your -face barking, but I suspect they were essentially friendly dogs.

I’m not sure what to say about this one, but I’m really curious. Maybe as spring unfolds, we’ll see what the future holds for the tub. :)

What the melting snow reveals …

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Not only did the dire predictions for a winter storm not amount to much in Bemidji beyond some wind and a little snow, we spent the noon hour Wednesday taking note of things that had been unearthed lately by the melting snow.

Such as the sandal above, which still had some ice adhered to it. Then we found a remnant of Halloween:

We have no guess as to story behind these pants:

And I have a feeling that this bunny is around for Easter and was merely forgotten outside. But doesn’t he look lonely???

Speaking of bunnies, I don’t suppose these tracks belong to *that* bunny:

We saw the rabbit tracks just after these really cute ones of a big and little kitty (yes, we know, they’re not supposed to be running loose, but maybe the big kitty had the little kitty on a leash ;) :

Can you guess whose tracks these are? :

While it was a very sunny day, it was also cold walking north, but once we turned around it felt pretty decent. In fact we were hot by the end of our walk.

We’re pretty excited for the rest of the snow to melt and the temps to keep rising. When we walked past the library and saw the grass exposed by the melting snow near the bushes, Bethany said her nearly 3-year-old daughter, Lola, had been thrilled to see grass for the first time. She even wanted to play in it!

Here’s the library bushes, and below is a view of the lovely mush that marks the beginning of spring:

Not a very long post today — heavy on the photos, though — as I had to go out of town and was busy until just now.

Happy spring! :)

We did see a little color today, but although Bethany’s tulips are already coming up, we were dubious of these flowers, which turned out to be of the faux variety:

Two years of walking — Happy Anniversary to us!

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The dirtier the snow, the closer we are to spring.

Today marks two years of walking for the Bemidji Trail Mix duo, and our third February.

Of course, there was no actual Trail Mix on Feb. 11, 2009, because we started walking with no intention to blog. We were asked to start a blog in June through Area Voices (which is looking for local bloggers — more on that later), but before then, we were just walking because we thought it would be a good way to lose weight and because it wasn’t running (we both hate running).

Starting in February really set the table for our dedication to walking in all sorts of weather. If we had started in June, we might have thought it made sense to take the winter off (which I guess would have made sense!), but a February start made that moot.  We were winter walkers from the start.

Sorry, not the best pictures today. I was trying out my new mini video camera and the stills aren't too good.

Neither of us started out as a winter walker, though. I don’t think either of us would have imagined that you could bundle up well enough to make December through February tolerable for an hour. Sometimes when I walk to my car to go to work, I think of how little it would take to freeze to death.  It gives me a bit of respect for winter, albeit the kind of respect you give a wild animal that would kill you.

But when I go to work, I’m not dressed the same as when we walk. We bundle up well — enough that we stand out from other people who are just walking a block or two.  On some cold, windy days, we just have eyes peeking out and we have to turn to find each other because our peripheral vision is caught up in hoods and scarves and face warmers. On some days, I feel like a kid stuffed into a snowsuit who has to waddle around outside.

The result is that we not only tolerate cold weather, we sometimes (at least when there’s little to no wind) get hot and have to take off layers.  I’m not talking about 30-below here — in that kind of weather, we can never bundle up enough to be in any way comfortable, but we can make a dent.

We haven’t avoided walking because of bad weather (if we can walk in 30 below temps, we can take anything this year dishes us out), but our outings have been sporadic this winter for various reasons. However, we have done four days this week, so it looks like we’re back on track!

Today was a very nice day and it sounds like the weekend will be good, too. We were talking today about people who hate the messy, slushy spring weather.  I say bring it on!

P.S. If you’re interested in an Area Voices blog (which utilizes WordPress),  visit the website at www.areavoices.com and check it out to see if you’d like to sign up. They are looking for bloggers in general, but are specifically interested in the topics of health, family, food, travel and money.

Deep in the Snow of Minnesota

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Bemidji has had so much snow, even the snowmen are getting buried. :)

We didn’t complain much today at all — we were just happy to not have the wind — and we had some spring in our steps. In fact, I took off my right glove after a while to take photos and never bothered to put it back on. We actually found it pretty nice, even though it was around 2 below. It just illustrates how frigid the wind chill has been lately!

This is one way to keep your iced tea cold.

This isn’t the greatest picture, but I took it quickly as we walked past. This guy made it down from the house in no time.  I guess he was cleaning snow off his roof, which is a pretty good idea. My parents had an old garage roof collapse last month and the building is now totaled.

I’m not sure how well this fits into the Stuff on the Ground category, but it looks like someone is losing something from under the hood of their vehicle.

(Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.)

We didn’t take a mystery photo today, but our last one was a bit of the railing from the top of the Remax building on Beltrami Avenue Northwest. This historic building, which is just as beautiful inside as it is on the outside, was once  Bemidji’s post office.

Tomorrow is a special day for the Bemidji Trail Mix duo — it’s our second anniversary of walking. Hopefully it will be a nice day and we’ll have a a really nice walk. This makes it our third February! I wonder if we would have kept it up if we’d started *January* 11. :)

And we’re back to cold …

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Looks like the snow has a grip on this tree!

Bethany left a post on my Facebook page Sunday asking me if I was going to be back in town in time to walk today (Monday). She added, “Hey, it might be above freezing, too!”

Nice, I thought. I didn’t even bother to check the forecast. I bundled up reasonably well before her arrival, but when I popped outside to see if she was there yet, my forehead froze on the spot. So I popped back *inside* and changed to my big furry hat.

It was actually around zero, but a really cold zero, especially when we were walking north. It was nice that Bethany had to stop at the Fire Hall and the Law Enforcement Center for reports, because it gave us a chance to warm up a bit. But the walk from there to 15th Street was brutal. Fortunately, it got better as soon as we turned to go back along Beltrami Avenue, although talk soon turned to long underwear and winter face masks and our lack of both today.  (Actually, neither of us has a face mask, but I had one last winter that I bought at Gander Mountain. It was great — it closed with Velcro in the back and had  little breathing holes for the nose, which meant the glasses didn’t get fogged up by breath escaping from the top of a scarf. Somehow that mask did not surface with the rest of my winter garb.)

Snow is piling up this winter, but it’s important to keep fire hydrants clear so firefighters can quickly access them in case of an emergency. As city crews clear snow and ice from the streets, the Bemidji Fire Department asks residents to help by clearing a three-foot radius around hydrants. Residents can adopt a fire hydrant to ensure the the hydrants remain accessible and visible. For details, call Fire Chief David Hoefer at 751-8001.

I love how Kelly Skime (center) falls backward straight as a rail!

Speaking of the firefighters, when we buzzed to get into the Fire Hall today, Justin Sherwood hurried to let us in and observed, “You guys look cold.” We had walked all of two blocks! That did not bode well for the rest of the walk (but we obviously survived). It was hard to feel very justified in our whining, though, with Kelly Skime sitting there. He cross-country skis to work. In the summer, he kayaks. And both he and Justin were among the firefighters who recently jumped into Lake Bemidji during the Polar Plunge, where Justin chose the somersault approach. They are definitely more Minnesotan than we will ever be.

This is another view of the scene pictured at the top of this blog post. I just thought these snow piles looked like some sort of sentries or vague gargoyle statues  built around the trees. I think they looked more gargoyle-like in person, though. ;)

You can’t make out the detail very well on this tree trunk, but I thought it looked like a dancing person holding up a tree with its right hand. It seems kind of  poetic; a tree that looks almost dead gives way to one branch that seems like a tree itself. Trees just seem to find a way.

After our walk, this was our Facebook exchange, which after Bethany’s first response made her mom wonder if we were fighting. :)

  • Laurie Swenson When you said “above freezing,” did you mean “above zero”? (Not that it was above zero.) :P

    9 hours ago ·

  • Bethany Wesley And, for the record, I said it “might be” above freezing. Not that it was even close, but I at least didn’t PROMISE anything!

    9 hours ago ·

  • Laurie Swenson Some meteorologist you are.

    7 hours ago ·

  • Bethany Wesley Maybe I should say it will be -27 and sleety tomorrow … this way when it is positive 3 and “breezy” we will feel blessed?! :)

    7 hours ago ·

I can’t say the photos were very pretty today. The snow is dirty and the trees are bare. Our best photo is the puzzler. Isn’t that sad? :)

Have a great week! We’re a fourth of the way through February!!!!! (And I’m five minutes from midnight Monday night, so I can still technically say today!)

Diving back in!

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Or should I say, trudging back in?

After about three weeks (maybe four?) of taking a break due to too-icy walkways, Laurie and I did decide to get outside and do some walking this afternoon.

The temperature actually was at or slightly above freezing, so it was a relatively pleasant February day. My pregnant stomach keeps getting larger. So I was glad to be able to put on a few layers of tops and not have to try to stretch a too-small winter coat over myself.

We walked through town, taking Minnesota Avenue all the way down past J.W. Smith until just about it hit Bemidji Avenue/Paul Bunyan Drive.

Then, to avoid the busy roadway, we thought we would be smart and cut through the parking lot of the stone building (what is that anyway? bus garage?), except, of course, we ended up at a big ol’ snowdrift dead end.

This was the view to the left:

And this was the view to the right:

So we had a choice – climb and hop a snow wall and trudge through the vacant old high school property (sounds easy, huh?) or head directly left and cut across a half-block to reach the sidewalk along Bemidji Avenue.

We chose Option B.

And, boy, are we glad. The picture at the top of this post shows Laurie about knee-high in show. I had just made it out.

It was not super duper easy.

But we survived, as always.

We got warm. Until we turned along 15th Street to head north (right? I’m terrible at directions…) and the wind was directly in our face. I thought it kind of felt good.

Anyhow, we walked today. Yay us. I hope we keep it up more often. (But any lack of walking is due to my wimpiness, not Laurie’s.)

More so, I hope the temperatures stay rather nice and high (ish) for the next few weeks.

That would be nice.