things i'm going to miss about living in the Twin Cities: aquatic edition

There's a chain of lakes that run right through the heart of Minneapolis and one of the cooler things that the city government did was to keep the lion's share of the lakefront property for municipal use. This leads to some pretty awesome running trails and a bunch of really fun, outdoors-y stuff to do right in the heart of the city. Here's an aerial shot I borrowed that shows what I mean.

From north to south you've got Cedar Lake, Lake of the Isles, Lake Calhoun and lake Harriet.

I used to live about a block from where Isles and Calhoun meet so I got to know both of them pretty well. Calhoun is sort of the preferred hangout for families, boaters and beautiful people who walk a round with little to nothing on because it has a ton of beaches. I enjoy running around this thing (it's a bit more than 3 miles, I think) when I'm in the mood to look at said beautiful people but, other than that, it's a pretty boring run due to the ovular nature of the trail.

My hands-down favorite body of water in the Cities is Lake of the Isles. It used to be right in my backyard (only 2 blocks away from my apartment in Uptown!) and is a lot more peaceful than the kinetic, densely populated Calhoun is. The two islands in the middle are nature preserves which you're not allowed to land on if you're boating around in the city's paddle boats or kayaks and there's a flock of geese that nest almost right on the trail (I've been chased by one before). It's got more of an aristocratic feeling due to the mansions lining the parkway that surrounds the lake but it's quite a bit more scenic than Calhoun.

That's all of my reminiscences for now. I would imagine that they're not particularly good reading and, frankly, I put this and the cat thing here more so I wouldn't forget than FYI.

Off to write a new piece for The Singers (and deal with the heat here in Austin). This time around it's a "deconstruction" of an aria from Handel's Messiah (specifically, it's the soprano movement, "Rejoice, greatly!") for their December concert. It's unlike any other "arrangement" I've ever tried to write and, frankly, the fact that I'm unsure of how it's going to turn out is part of why I proposed writing it in the first place. I saw an interview with Stephen Sondheim once where he said that all artists should be a little scared of their next project and I kind of dig that idea.