Bridge Over Icy Waters...

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Out playing with the camera again this morning, I thought I'd take some more pictures of the ice.

The ice always seems to crack outward from the pilings of the boardwalk, which sways slightly in the wind, or when groups of people are walking on it. The pilings are made out of some sort of plastic and aren't quite as rigid as wood.

Some of these cracks extend for hundreds of feet into the marsh, possibly even all the way across. The sound of the ice sheet resonating as a crack moves across the surface is fascinating, and to me rather hauntingly beautiful, but quite terrifying if you happen to be out on the stuff.

I was vacationing, at about age 12, with my aunt & uncle who owned a cabin up here, when my cousin David and I went tobogganing toward the lake down a slope from their place. We picked up too much speed and went way farther than we expected, ending up several hundred feet out on the ice which began cracking all around us.

I had never heard that sound before but it scared the hell out me when I realized what was happening. We knew we were in trouble but had enough sense to stay on the toboggan which evenly distributed our weight. By pushing our way backwards toward the shore, with very gentle hand-paddling motions against the ice, our mittens giving us some traction, we somehow made it.

We're very lucky we weren't any bigger, heavier, or riding on sharp-edged sleds, or I might not be writing this.

No one saw us out there, and we were afraid to tell anyone what we'd done when we got back.

But we never did it again!