I love sailing. I find it exciting and relaxing. Peaceful and challenging. So this is what I'm thinking about while the temperature drops to minus 15 and all of the water within several hundred miles is frozen solid. My grandfather told stories about his childhood when the folks in this neck of the woods would go out with horse drawn sleds and cut huge blocks of ice from the lakes for their ice houses(those are not houses built from ice)!!! Dug into the ground and built from stone these buildings would house the blocks of ice throughout the hot weather and provide cooling for food stuffs. About the only thing needed from town were the staples that could not be grown on the farm. Salt, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and several other items that were needed to make life on the "Great American Desert" possible. It always amazes me the lengths to which our pioneer ancestors would go to provide for their needs. On the other hand the natives lived here for thousands of years and needed nothing which the earth did not provide. Therein lies the paradox. When people are 'civilized' they depend on others to provide for them. When people are independent they need nothing from anyone else but to be left alone. I like sailing!