Arctic Wasteland

1-23-2005 - 7:07 a.m.

I'm up at 7 am on a Sunday because I can't sleep. Not such a bad deal, considering that I am now watching the sunrise through tangerine-tinted clouds over Lake Michigan.
Why the sun is even bothering to rise today is beyond me. Its paltry attempts at warming the air over Chicago will surely be useless today.

The lake is a frozen expanse of jagged cracks and crevasses. It looks like one of those pictures you see in National Geographic of the Arctic ice sheets-- endless miIes and miles of white nothingness. I picture myself getting stuck on a huge sheet of this ice and floating away, maybe riding it out to Makinaw Island.

I used to hate Chicago in the winter. But with a view like the one I have this morning, it's hard not to love it.

Before - After