Until recently, we've had a bit of a drought this summer and our beloved Minnehaha Creek dried up for the first time in the 36 years I've lived near it. What better way to explore it than by bike? Enter Pugsley. The creek stretches 22 miles from the western suburbs where it starts at Lake Minnetonka, home of the original Tonka Toys. Since the lake water levels were so low, they closed the damn and let the creek dry up. This is the creek we're normally canoeing down this time of year. Also the creek we've occasionally ridden on while frozen during the winter. I dropped in near my house and proceeded to find knee deep water right away. Albeit slow, the only problem was the stench of the floating white bellies. But as soon as I was wet with dead fish soup, it didn't really matter any more, as long as I kept my mouth shut. Along with the dead fish were plenty of live ones, trapped in what few muddy puddles remained. There were long sections of sand, long sections of mud and even longer sections of rock. Embedded in these rocks were all kinds of former gems; like yo-yo's, hairbrushes, golf balls and fishing lures. For as many times as I've swam or canoed in the water and ridden over the ice, I've never seen this underbelly of the creek before. I'll let pictures speak for words with the rest of my story. All I can say is that the rain has started again, the creek is raging and I hope some of you locals got a chance to ride it because it may never happen again. Pug In Creek Photos Here -----

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