Excitement at the Rose Garden

What a difference in the weather at the Rose Garden yesterday when I walked there at lunch. It was 64 degrees and cloudy. But, it was still nice walking weather.

Today I went there after work, and it was 86 degrees and sunny again. There was a beautiful breeze and it was wonderful! I enjoy walking there with the lake so close, and looking out over the lake, especially today when the water was so blue.

I read one of the informational plaques, and discovered that the garden was started in the spring of 1968. Gee, I thought that it was there a lot longer than that, in fact the garden is only 1 year older than the years that I’ve lived in Duluth! The large fountain in the garden originally sat at the corner of Superior Street and London Road, and it was there for watering the horses.

I’ll tell you something that happened yesterday during my walk there. My friend Sharon, works close to the garden, so she stopped over and walked with me yesterday. Her son took a trip the whole way around Lake Superior two summers ago in a kayak. So, she was very sensitive to something she spotted out in the lake that she thought looked like a kayak and it didn’t seem to be moving, and sometimes it looked like maybe someone was hanging on. She said if you fall out of a kayak, it’s very hard to get back in. We kept looking and she kept worrying. We were wishing we had binoculars. Then we noticed two men who also were looking and thought it looked like maybe a kayak or a boat too. It was pretty far out, so it looked small. Another woman was looking and she thought maybe it was a log. Well, everyone was speculating, but no one seemed to consider doing anything. Sharon thought maybe the coast guard should be alerted, or something. Someone suggested calling 911. So, just before we had to leave to go back to work, she called 911 and reported it. As we were getting in our cars to leave, we heard and saw the police cars and the ambulance coming, sirens, lights and all! We didn’t have time to stick around, but hoped we’d see something on the news. I didn’t see anything on the news, and we were surprised that her call brought all that to the garden, after all it was something way out in the lake, not the garden! We had imagined that maybe the coast guard would take a boat out there and look or something… gee… they asked her for her name and number, she said she sure hopes she doesn’t get charged for any emergency service charges!