I don’t know why we thought it would be cold and rainy.  This morning turned out to be beautiful.  Instead of doing 10,000 things around the house to prep for Thanksgiving, we threw on our coats and went down to the lakefront, where everything was clear and fresh and wide open.

Hardly anyone was at Montrose Harbor, to our surprise.  A couple of guys were fishing.  There were a few joggers.  Off to the north, dogs were lolloping around on the far side of the fence. One knot of people was standing on the fishhook pier, trying to spot the red-throated loon that has been burning up the listservs this weekend.  Farther out to the south, a sailing class was swooping around in little boats – practically the last leisure craft left in the water. We had our binoculars, but mostly they served as necklaces.  We were just walking, stopping, looking, looking at the blue-and-buff calm of it all.

Now we are back at home, heads down – washing floors, simmering stock, sorting through baffling stacks of what is all this.  But this morning, for a couple of hours, we had this.