Random Halloween Surfers

I’m pretty sure that I’ll never stop getting a charge over the fact that I live in Minnesota, hundreds and hundreds of miles from any ocean, and I still get to see surfers catching waves on a regular basis.  Of course, the wind has to be just right, but still, it’s fairly ridiculous.   What is even more ridiculous is that prime surfing weather is often when things around here turn even colder than usual:  in the fall and even in the middle of the winter.

On Halloween I taught music and movement class while Dr. Peds slept the morning away after working all night.  We decided to take Mr. TOF out for lunch at one of our favorite pizza places, Vitta Pizza, down on Canal Park.  Mr. TOF was wearing part of his costume, of course.  After a delicious lunch, we decided to drive over by the ship museum, just for fun.  On the way down the hill we had noticed that the wind. although not all that strong, was pushing up some white capped waves on Park Point.  When we got out of the car, my husband was wistful that there were all sorts of surfers out and that life gets in the way, and he hasn’t turned into the surfer guy he dreams about being.

We decided to walk across the lift bridge to get a better look at the surfers out off of Park Point.  There were a group of long board surfers who were super smart.  They’d ride the waves in, and then rather than wasting all that energy paddling back out against the force of the waves with their boards, they just hopped right out of the water, ran over to the shipping canal, carried their board half way down and jumped back in to catch the next wave.  Well, maybe not the next wave, because it’s actually harder to find the right wave than one would think, apparently, and surfers spend a lot of time floating out there waiting for the right wave.

Mr. Trouble on Feet loved seeing the surfers up close and personal.  It was fun to watch them climb up on the railing and jump right in with their boards.  It wasn’t what I expected to be watching in the afternoon on Halloween, but it was quite interesting.  For the record:  the air temperature was 36 degrees.  The water temperature was probably about 42 degrees or so.  Chilly, but warmer than surfing in January.