The Slurpee Down the Street

Although I'm a little more than half-way through my second Chicago winter, I had never witnessed this sight until now.  I never wanted to get close to a frozen lake with kids in tow, so while my mom was here and I was on my way home from a grocery trip where I had NO kids with me, I took the opportunity to jump out and experience Lake Michigan in slurpee form.  And that's exactly what it was.  It was weird.

I stood there at the edge of the water (well, about 10 yards back) completely alone and felt like I was in a sci-fi movie on a weird icy sci-fi planet.  A lone sci-fi girl with only her sci-fi cell phone to get photo documentation.  If you've never seen Lake Michigan, which is really only a few blocks away from us, it seems an awful lot like an ocean.  It's big.  Great, if you will.  A Great Lake.  And this Great Lake was rolling massively--up and down, and as it did so, that ocean-sound was missing.  Instead it sounded just like a really giant slurpee.  I really came home craving slurpee. 

That sorry excuse for a skyline is NOT my beloved Chicago, but actually Gary Indiana, I think.  If I had only turned my phone about 90 degrees to the left I would have gotten MY skyline, but I wasn't thinking of that.  I was trying to capture the giant chunks of ice crashing against that... thing jutting out. I'm sure it has a name.  Like Jetty or something.

I wasn't really expecting to be so amazed.  It was just crazy how the waves still rose but they were like waves of ice.  Ice waves, I call them. 

Okay, okay, I suppose I've overstated myself.  It's kind of what I do.