Going to the lake

Like I said before IT'S HOT!!!.

Already this month we've had record breaking highs and its not even officially summer yet.  I just can't get over how hot this month has been.  What makes it so bad is that we've had very little rain and so it just stays hot.  I don't mind high temps as long as it gets cool in the evenings but we are not even having that break.  Its been staying hot all the time.  My air conditioning has been running non stop and I hate to imagine what this months bill is going to be.  I've never recalled a June being so hot as long as I've lived in this town.

Junes official temperatures have been in Shreveport (but I must admit I've seen temperatures higher by two to three degrees than these around town with frequently them being over 100):
Jn1- 93/70;  2-97/72;  3-98/71;  4-98/72;  5- 100/70; 6- ?? (but it was in the 100 range)  7-99/68;  8-98/69;  9-95/72;  10-97/70; 11-95/70;  12-99/71;  13-99/72;  14-100/72;  15-101/75; 16-98/77;  17-101/78;  18-101/79; 19-103/79 (our car said 105).

Yes it has been definitely hot in my area and what makes it even worse is this doesn't take into account what it feels like because of the high humidity we also have. So like right now when its registering 88 degrees the little icon when you click on it says it feels like its 92 degrees. 

When it gets hot like this all I can think about is going to the lake.  The lake I prefer to stay at and visit is Lake Erie where my family has a place. Hopefully I'll get there in August.  I can hardly wait.

Sunset on Lake Erie, Madison Oh

Here's a picture again as to what I like looking at while I'm there.

Sunset on Lake Erie (June 2008)

& another one

Now to get cool I like to remember the last time I was there at Christmas time.  Here's the post I posted during that time on  ice forming on lake Erie.

My favorite picture of that time is this one

Ice forming on Lake Erie

I like this picture so much because you can see the lake is frozen along the edge.  (It always boggles my mind to see such a big lake freezing, but it does because its fresh water.) To the left of the pole near the top if you look very carefully you can see a creek that empties into the lake.  Because of the freezing conditions some of the water emptied on top of the ice along the bottom of the photo and some of it was cutting a channel through the ice to the middle of the photo. This was so neat to watch the water melting the ice down forming a trough to flow through.
  I think the reason this water wasn't frozen is two fold.  First it was faster moving water and second the creek is fed by street run off.  They use a lot of salt on the streets to melt the snow in the area and the salty water has a lower freezing point than the fresh water of the lake.
  I also like the way you can see how big some of the pieces of ice can be on the lake.  I used to think that when the lake freezes it would be relatively flat like a pond but as you can see it is not.  The waves break chunks of ice off and sometimes lifts it over other pieces of ice.  My brother likes to call these ice rafts, I'm sure there is a technical name for this phenomena but I don't know whats its called.  These rafts of ice also has waves breaking on them thus building them up and making them higher and impressive to look at.