Heavy traffic on westbound I-94 on a route from NE Minneapolis to Uptown -- "seven luminary events tonight, KARE 11 News said, they must all be at the same lake," I observe from the passenger seat; that, or high school hockey games, I think without saying. Outside my window the frozen Mississippi River dissects the city like a fault line, steel bridges arching over it, smokestacks and loading docks on either side; when we reach the far side of the river, the skyscrapers of downtown Minneapolis rise up alongside U.S. Bank Stadium, the domed residence of the Vikings, to form the skyline, dazzled by a thousand city lights.
It's been some time since I stepped foot in my studio apartment. Open the door, flip on the lights, and scan the floor for mice with a silent prayer. Phew. No signs of rodents. Put on a clean pair of long underwear and fill my new jumbo Stanley mug with Michigan Cherry-flavored coffee. Pull on my Charlie Conway jersey over my winter jacket. Water my three plants.
Kim and I walked to World Street Kitchen on Lyndale for dinner. Sat down at a two-seat table with a view of the city street outside, where cars of a monotone chalk gray color motored through boulders of slush and pedestrians trudged down the salt-coated sidewalks. Across the street, above a yoga studio, an old-fashioned neon sign said "TRAVEL" in red.
After dinner, we walked up 27th Avenue towards Lake of the Isles. Outside of Nat's Books, the bookstore with live-in rabbit, I first heard the cover band playing from the lake. They must be playing loud!
Double snowblower engines revved across the street, obscuring the music, annoyingly, momentarily. "Sounds of a Minnesota February night," I mused, adding, "scrapers mashing ice off a windshield, engines breathing heavily, grunting, as if hacking up phlegm." We'd gotten about 5 inches of heavy snow overnight and into this morning.
The Luminary Loppet took place on the frozen surface of the lake, this year (last year, the event consisted of a hike around the lake as the lake was not frozen across); the garden canopy of hanging ice orbs glowed from the middle of the lake, visible as we crested the residential hill that slopes down to the lake, the tire swing hanging from the gargantuan oak tree in the front yard to the right.
The band played "Hot to Go," "Pink Pony Club," "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life," "Don't Stop Believin'" and other bangers that made me dance and sing out loud. We followed the various trails in every diagonal direction across the lake, each one bordered by rows of sand-filled paper bags lit by candlelight. We saw the ice pyramids, the life-sized sailboat sculptures carved from ice, multiple hot cocoa stands consisting of long wooden tables, the aforementioned garden of hanging ice orbs, and a fire dancing performance, where two androgynous bodies twirled flaming batons as spectators surrounded in a circle. We also passed ice fishing tents, a pop-up sauna tent, porta johns, and the neon-lit party zone, which included the bandstand, adult beverage stands, and a dance area.
Lakefront houses, many of which feature vast windows that invite voyeurism, hosted big parties in conjunction with the event. The social aspect of the whole affair, undisguised, reminded me of a scene from Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, perhaps at White Bear Lake; it made me proud to be a Minnesotan, dontcha know, celebrating rather than hiding from winter. With the wind nip it felt like zero degrees and you felt it when you took off your gloves to take a photo.
"That's a hard-ass jersey, dude," a solo loppeter remarked in passing. Behind him a quartet of snowshoers pushed ahead, onward to the next station a quarter mile down. The jersey felt like a fitting choice for an event in Minneapolis, at one of the filming locations of the movie no less, fitting for a night of winter magic.
The stars and moon glowed a whitish yellow overhead, making the sky above look like the cold purplish midnight blue of a Graveyard slushie from Dairy Dan.
