Refreeze

Winter made a return visit to the northland today. It was the first day with below average temperature in a very long time. It was one degree fahrenheit early this morning when I was on my way to Wooddale to play Saturday tennis, and it warmed all the way to 19 when I was visiting the big falls in Minneapolis this afternoon.

The falls had nearly melted the last time I was there and actually posted a picture of the falls, that on December 6.  This is the scene today.  The creek is frozen over, too.

And this is what the falls looked like on January 6, in a previously unpublished photo.

The creek on the way to the Mississippi is frozen hard, but somehow looks strange without a halo of snow along the banks.

The big tennis news of the weekend is the Davis Cup results from Switzerland. The US team defeated the Swiss team - a team composed of Roger Federer (ranked #3 in the world) and Stan Wawrinka (ranked #27) with a team of John Isner (#17) and Mardy Fish (#8) - plus a doubles team composed of Fish and Mike Bryan. Isner upset Federer in four sets and Mardy Fish won a five set match from Wawrinka on clay in Fribourg, Switzerland. It was the first loss for Roger in Davis Cup singles in eight years. Fish and Bryan beat Fed and Wawrinka (the reigning Olympic doubles champions) in four sets in the doubles event for an insurmountable 3-0 lead.

The second big news is that I managed to play four consecutive days of tennis this week and still had enough energy to win a set this morning at Wooddale, and to hold off the opponents long enough for time to run out with the score 6-6. Oxygen was not available at the tennis club, but I was able to get home and have a nutritious lunch before my trek to Minnehaha Falls this afternoon.