The Soo Locks was open something like nine days ago and the first ship locked through today. It took the Cason Calloway (and the John Munson) NINE DAYS to traverse Lake Superior, normally about a 20-hour trip. The Calloway posts on facebook as Storm Warrior and a couple days ago, when they were ramming their way down through the ice off the eastern shore below Michipicoten Island, Storm Warrior posted something like, “Stuck in the Ice on Lake Superior, starring the Cason Calloway, the John Munson, and the icebreaker Mackinaw.” After another couple days they were finally all in the upper St. Mary’s River, in front of the moominbeach out by the Pickle Finger. The Calloway earned a plaque for being the first ship through the locks for the year. A hard-earned honor this year.

A few years ago, we were up in the yooperland visiting The Commander when the shipping season began. That year there was no ice to speak of and I walked down to the locks at 7:30 AM the morning the first boats were locking through. As I walked into the deserted park, the security guard on duty came out to inspect me and I greeted him with, “Good morning! I’m your first tourist!” Was he befuddled? Yes. I’m sure he knew I wasn’t a terrorist (they get soooooo many terrorists up there at the Soo Locks) but he didn’t seem to know what to say to me so he started telling me about the locks. He didn’t know that I had been hanging around the locks since well before he was born. When I was a toddler, I would demand “Down boat!” whenever I thought we needed to take a riverfront ride. I did talk him down off that ledge.

So, here on The Planet Ann Arbor, we have the Ann Arbor Cougar, the Dexter Bare Bear, and the 20 Pound Carp. They all have Twitter handles and I follow them all. This next is probably not safe for work but I am here to tell you that we now have the Mystery Pooper. Apparently someone has been pooping on the slides at a playground in Ypsilanti. Who would want to drop their pants to poop on a slide during our loverly polar vortex winter? I do not know. Of course, @Mystery_Pooper is now a twitter handle. I am not following it. I cannot quite go there. Also, our own local @Mystery_Pooper is not the only mystery pooper on Twitter. Go figger.

Tonight was Fool Moon. We love Fool Moon but we bagged it tonight. We walked down to the Oscar Tango for dinner and wandered over to Fool Moon afterwards but the festivities hadn’t started yet and it was frickin’ cold and windy and kind of rainy and we didn’t really want to hang out in the beer tent at that point in the evening. I am not complaining. I did not have to think about ice ONCE tonight. But we bagged Fool Moon this time around. We’ll try for the Festifools parade on Sunday. Which will be a zoo. Maybe the idea is to get a barroom seat this year.

Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. My own personal backyard glacier is gone. Mostly. Summertime? Bring it!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2014 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.