I need to be careful how I word this, or I will receive thousands of messages from Minnesotans and residents of North Dakota telling me that the cold of which I complain is an average summer day up there, and that they go swimming and wear shorts in weather like ours. So what I will say is this: to a softie such as myself, here on the edge of the great plains where the temperature never goes below minus 20 Fahrenheit, wearing only t-shirt, shirt, two sweaters and a down parka and with only snow pants over my Gap 1969 jeans (I remember 1969, I was on the mall in DC for the big anti-war rally on November 15 &16, jumping up and down and shouting “Hell no, we won’t go” while my father stood nearby reading Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida) and a mere two pairs of thick woolen socks inside my insulated waterproof boots, it felt cold. I even had the hood of my parka pulled up over my woolen skullcap and it still felt cold. I guess I’m just a softy to be feeling cold on a sunny 17º Fahrenheit day with a mild west wind of only 15 miles per hour. That’s why I galloped up the berm above Bowl Lake, to get the blood circulating a bit.
You can imagine how bright the world was, though, with all that sunlight flashing through the recently purified Saint Louis air and reflecting off the freshly fallen fields of snow. Fortunately for me I had sun glasses with me, but unfortunately for me I dropped them in the snow and had a difficult time drying them off. They also made it difficult to see through the camera viewfinder and to see the screen on the back because they were polarized and caused both of the above to darken at certain angles. Ah, the challenges of art!
The day went by quickly, though, as I had a lot of work to do both before and after my Forest Park excursion. The part that was the most fun was wading through the snow drifts and kicking snow everywhere. My inner 4th grader was extremely satisfied by that.
How ‘bout them cardinals?
Lens flare; it’s natural!! Click on image to see photos without lens flare.