Canoeing...in the middle of the city!

We got our canoe (that lots of people gave us for the wedding) last week and we went out on it today on the Minneapolis 'chain of lakes.' These are a series of connected lakes - Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, Cedar Lake - right in the middle of the city of Minneapolis. They are part of the parks in the twin cities. Mostly sailboats, windsurfers, canoes, and kayaks use the lakes, and lots of fishing going on. It was a lovely afternoon to be out - not too hot, some clouds and not a lot of boat traffic. The only thing that marred the outing was that we didn't know we needed to have the canoe licensed and registered and we got a ticket! The park police (or whoever they are) were out in force, checking fishing licenses, etc. So we got nailed! Oh well, now we know! Anyhow, we had a really lovely time- even saw some wildlife: a turtle, lots of sunfish (and probably some bass too but not being fishermen, we don't really know how to tell one fish from another), Canadian geese, mallards, and two - TWO!- great blue herons. Very cool. We tried to get photos of the herons but they are a bit camera shy- we need more telephoto zoom capacity! Mamita lives near Lake of the Isles and so walked out to meet us and took some photos of us in our canoe! (canoe needs a name....any ideas?)

Us on Lake of the Isles,


Here is downtown Minneapolis from Lake of the Isles:


Lake of the Isles has islands on it (surprising, no?), which are wildlife refuges.




passage from Lake Calhoun into Lake of the Isles,


Passage from Lake of the Isles to Cedar Lake,




The canoe looks quite funny atop Madame X, our small Honda!