Saturday Morning Catch

I was much closer to real fish this morning, about 500 miles due east from Sioux Center, Iowa, and just down the road from the town in which I was born, a little town named Oostburg, Wisconsin.

'Twas very cold, as cold as I've been for a long time; and the dawn wasn't as spectacular as others I've been blessed to see. But the big lake is the big lake, and there's just nothing like it--if you were born here, I guess. It was perfectly wonderful to be out there, a huge belt of fog like a cloud above the water, holding back the sun until finally it arose from behind a gilded edge.

I was the only one in the park that early--me and about a dozen deer (probably more, but I saw about a dozen). The dunes, the sand, the brush, the dawn--it was all gorgeous.

But good night, it was cold.