Rose-Smelling Part the First

 Spring Summer returned to Minnesota today. High twenties, sunny, a bit humid, a bit breezy - gorgeous.

What's a girl to do except strap on her running shoes and head out for a run?

(This was actually a big deal in and of itself. I hurt myself a few weeks back - own fault, pushed myself too hard, busted up my IT band, yadda yadda, couldn't run for awhile - so I'm relishing getting back in the game.)

Whenever I run outside, it's always in only one direction. Towards the lake:

I loved this lake even before we moved here. When we went on our whirlwind tour to find a house four days before The Husband was scheduled to start his new job, our relocation agent drove us around the area we had in mind and there, right in the middle of the city, was a lake.

(This is not a big deal to the locals, but to a prairie girl, whose closest "lakes" were man-made mosquito traps or all the way into the next province, this was astonishing.)

More astonishing was that the house we ended up with was only three quarters of a mile from this lake. It didn't take long before all of my walks headed in that direction.

Then we moved to get into the right school division, and I mourned that we were farther away from the lake. Only two miles, but it wasn't a quick fifteen-minute walk anymore.

(Maybe that's why I started running longer distances right from the start. It was the only way to get down to the beach and back.)

We longed to get back into our first neighbourhood, not least because all of our runs/bikes/beach/park trips ended up there.

And lo and behold, after years of stalking the MLS listings and narrowing our search down to six square blocks in the entire state, our perfect little house on the hill happens to be as close to the lake as possible while still being just inside the school district.

I love, love, love the lake. I love the separate walking and biking paths. I love that it's the perfect 3-mile distance around. I love watching the sailboats. I love the new concession stand that makes the best black bean burgers I've ever tasted. I love that they're replacing the play structure so the kids will have a most difficult choice determining whether they want to play there or at the beach.

I love that they have concerts in the bandshell on summer weekends:

I love that when I bike to work, I get to the lake just as the sun is cresting the water. I love that I can see my downtown office skyscraper from its beaches and know that during the day I'm just a hop, skip, and a jump from one of my favourite places.