Summer in Minnesota amazes me. It’s so green and beautiful. It’s almost enough to forget how absolutely miserable it is for close to nine months of the year.
We recently spent a week in Minneapolis about a mile from Lake Calhoun, Harriet, and Lake of the Isles and, like thousands of other people, thought it would be a good idea to picnic, hike, and hang out on the trails around the lakes. Walking by this pile of bikes I thought, there’s a sure sign of summer in Minnesota.
Here’s another favorite of mine, piles of seaweed. I remember when I was a kid, my mom and I rode our bikes around a lake in Madison, Wisconsin. We stopped at a lake, I ran into the water to cool off, and when I came out my legs were coated with green slime. That was pretty much the last time I got into a lake in the Midwest.
Last, but not least, wading pools. Can a summer go by in Minnesota without wading pools? My sister has two of these in close proximity to her house and the kids just love them. They are pretty nice for parents too, there’s a bit less panic about drowning and it’s a bit easier to keep an eye on the kids when the water is so shallow. We also check out the wading pools when we go to South Dakota. The only one who doesn’t like them is my oldest. There are always too many people around for him to really enjoy it. He’d probably love one in our backyard though.
Karen Alma 