Headed out with mom for a chase south. Slight risk, mostly unidirectional winds. Stopped to wait in Clear Lake, IA under a band of cu. Eventually the line fired right over the top of us. Ran through some hail up to 1.5″. Saw one lowering, no rotation. Saw a great rainbow over a windfarm, and almost hit a deer on the way home. All in all, not a bad first chase of the season. 400 miles.
Max and I saw smoke up to the NE of where we live on the way home tonight. Decided to do a detour to check it out. Very windy day, red flag warnings out to the west. The fire ended up being a little further than we expected. All the way up in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. By the time we got there the smoke was thinning out a little. Saw the police and reserves going door to door in the area just to the south of the park asking residents to keep an eye on the fire. Accidently got on the backside of the barracades, made a hasty exit to the south to get clear of the fire area.
Unfortunately we found out later that a fireman had been arrested for starting the fire by shooting fireworks into the ditch from his vehicle.
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Max competed at a Karate Tournament on Sunday. Won a couple of trophies and a ribbon.
Took the kids up to the Blaine Spring Egg Hung today. Very nicely organized with the different age groups each hunting for eggs on a different baseball field. Lisa stayed with Em while I hung out with Max.
Flooding at one of the many boat launches along the Mississippi River in Brooklyn Park MN.
Enjoying some time with the wife up in Two Harbors while the kids bond with the grandparents for a few days. Woke up this morning with ice on everything. Nice for those of us that have no where to go. A challenge for those having to go to work in it. It rained most of the day, and the forecast is for another 1/2 inch before its over tomorrow sometime. Power and cable service has been intermittent today. With as much ice as I saw on the lines outside, I’m surprised we have any utilities at all.
And yes, another trek down to the Coon Rapids Dam with Max this time. Beautiful day for a hike.
Did a trek with Max to Wabasha to visit the Eagle Center. We didn’t see any eagles at the center (except the recovering tame ones) but we did see more than a dozen by Reed’s landing. It was tough getting good pictures. They were either moving too fast, or hanging out just out of range. The 300mm lens got a workout today.
Headed down to Coon Rapids dam to get some Ice Flow Pictures with Emily after visiting San Park.
Decided to do some running around with Emily today. Max and mom were out at a birthday party. Pretty cold outside but Em still wanted to go exploring so we headed up to see the Swans at Monticello. There were a lot of Swans, geese, ducks around, but not nearly the 1000+ count that we heard from the previous year due to a new food management program in place that was suppose to help the swans make the decision to migrate. The program was canceled due to a lot of swans eating lead off the bottom of the river and lakes.
More information on swan park: http://www.monticellocci.com/
