Lighthouse Legs

I didn’t get lighthouse legs this year even though I once again made the annual pilgrimage up the spiral staircase to the top of the old Iroquois light tower. It’s at the gateway to The Big Lake They Call Gitchee Gumee. I’ve been going there since I was a little kid. Back in the old days, there was an actual *light* in the tower. It was open to the public then too and when you got to the top, you had to navigate around that light. Hmmm, you guys, am I remembering this accurately or am I delusional? I’ve been telling my kids this story for years. You know the drill — back when *I* was a kid, I had to walk ten miles to school in six feet of snow and it was uphill both ways. I do definitely remember seeing the light flash at night from Fin Family Moominbeach. Nowadays everything is GPS or whatever. I mean, we do still have lights and buoys in the channel but the lighthouse was retired long ago and now serves as a museum and national landmark or whatever (can’t remember the sign). I miss seeing that revolving light and I miss the old foghorns too. Anyway, I guess I’m not delusional but, for a number of years, I would get lighthouse legs every time I climbed up the Iroquois Light staircase. I didn’t get them when I was a kid. I think it started sometime after I had my own kids. It wasn’t a painful condition. My muscles just felt a little odd, which didn’t exactly mesh with my habit of walking about a million miles a day. Of course, my usual walking routes do not involve traversing several stories of spiral staircase. Anyway, all of a sudden I am not getting lighthouse legs any more, so I dunno. The pic is an old Fresnel lens from the lighthouse museum and the slide show (click here or on the pic) is of last Saturday’s expotition to Iroquois. We also had coffee (and a whole bunch of free smoothie samples) at the Dancing Crane Cafe on the res and went to the Spectacle Lake Overlook. In order to save The Commander’s reputation, I won’t make any jokes about the dump today.

One Response to “Lighthouse Legs”

  1. Mark Says:

    Hey Anne, I didn’t check your blog until after I did mine, interesting.