Photo gallery: a walk in the (frozen) park - White Rock Prairie, that is

by Story and photos by John P. Meyer

O.K., as ice storms go I'll admit this was a pretty lame one - at least, it was out in East Dallas where I hang with the missus.

But, still, the glazed over roadways gave me an excuse (and an opportunity) to get out with the camera this morning and do a brief nature walk down to the White Rock Prairie preserve at the end of my street (Brookhurst and Van Dyke).

Folks hailing from Chicago will be greatly underwhelmed by the scant amount of ice coating the twigs and caking the grama grass, but lest we forget - this ain't Chicago. A fact which we can be abundantly grateful for, most winters.

One additional cool feature of an icy morning walk is that one needn't worry about getting run over by a zooming SUV (or other form of motorized conveyance): thanks to school being out and most people realizing that they wouldn't be able to drive on the ice sheet, there was next to no traffic on the street leading over to the park.

Good thing, too, because I was occasionally forced to navigate my slippery way to the road surface - where the sun had melted the ice - in order to avoid the shady sidewalk (where it hadn't).

All things considered, I think a few hours in the morning is about the right amount of time for things to be icebound. By afternoon, we should all be able to get back to the regular grind. (Sigh.)