There's Cold and Then There's *Cold*

Halfway around the lake, a woman and her Doberman caught up to me.

"Hi!" I called, unfolding myself from the icy moss where I had been lying (my favorite photographing position).

"Hi!" When she caught up to me, she said, "Do you live here? I mean, right at the lake?"

"Near enough."

"I've never been here in the snow before. I'm from Nebraska," she said.

Before we could pursue Nebraska or why she's here, we discovered two large coffee containers, still topped, sitting upright in the sand.

"Is there a garbage can nearby?"

"Yep. Look right over there on the other side of the beach," I said.

"If my child did this, I'd lecture her. Do people litter here often?"

"Oh yes, all the time. You wouldn't believe what I pull out of the lake."

After dumping the cups, we discussed the weather, of course. (Everyone has been discussing the weather. My Birmingham family and friends had challenges yesterday, and we've hit single digits more time this month than I remember in ten years here.)

"I heard the students complaining about the cold," she said. "They should come to Nebraska where the wind blows 30 miles an hour, and then they'll know cold!"

I asked if she had seen the footprints on the lake ice -- large ones, clearly a male's, with a love note by one of the footbridges and small ones -- child size -- across from the beach.

"We teach children in Nebraska that you don't walk on a lake or pond until the water has frozen all the way down to the bottom," she said.

"That sounds wise."

And with that, she and the Doberman continued on, into the woods.

There's cold and then there's cold. For her, it's wind in Nebraska's winter snow. For me, it was 20-something with 100% humidity in New Orleans.

But for Lake Cheston, cold is cold, and continued cold has meant myriad patterns of ice -- flowers, bubbles, sheets, striations, chains, beads. I'll take this cold anytime because it's so beautiful.