CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH FOR ME

OPEN WATER OF THE CHANNEL BETWEEN BAYFIELD AND MADELINE ISLAND

Thursday,  8:30 AM.  14 degrees F at the ferry dock, 12 on the back porch.  Wind SSW, mostly calm with light gusts.  The sky is mainly overcast, the humidity 83% and the barometer is at 30.16" and rising.
   We were extremely lucky to have returned from Texas before the massive storm which hit the Midwest during the last few days struck.  We would have been marooned somewhere along the way, for sure.  The storm closed hundreds of miles of I70 in Kansas and I80 in Nebaska and I 35 would have been almost as badly affected.  As it was, we got the leading edge of the storm all the way north to Bayfield, where the roads are still slick and drifted.
   It is now February, and the channel between Bayfield and Madeline Island is again open water, the strong winds spawned by the storm breaking up the ice and blowing it out.  The ferry has been breaking ice to keep operating, as the ice has been too hazardous for any kind of vehicle traffic, and the windsleds have not been in service as yet. 
   It looks now as though the ferry might run all winter, although a spate of really cold weather without strong winds may still freeze the channel.  We had a mild early winter and little really frigid weather thus far, and the groundhog predicted an early spring yesterday.
   Can't come soon enough for me.