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As we crested the hill, the lake filled our vision. Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake. Duluth rimmed the steep shore here, sort-of a little San Francisco. I recall the story about the guy who tried to move his house across the ice by truck to an island - and lost house and truck to the deep.
We were still a couple of hours from Lutsen, the home of Cindy Nelson, Olympic skier. Over and over the tape player ran through the same damn Santana tape- Santana gone commercial here in the late seventies, phooey.
The skiing was the best I had experienced (which wasn't saying all that much, really- my one chance for an Aspen trip fissled for lack of snow- in February! This was in the dark ages of skiing, before snow machines were common in Colorado). And you could see the lake while you skiied on some of the slopes, although on those, the wind came slicing off the lake, adding to brutality of the 20 below temp. It was goggles and masks and limited consecutive runs if you had any brains. Those runs are as long as a mile, not bad for the midwest..
Wasn't anything to do at night, though. The slopes weren't lit, you had to get off before dark- 4 pm. And it was COLD. It hit 30 below the night before we left. The last day, the parking lot was full of cars with their hoods up, awaiting jump starts, including ours. The one truck starting them all must have raked it in that day..It took him two hours to get to our car- and he was in the lot the whole time.
Chamber
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Index of Other Writing