It's a Boat..It's a Bus...It's a Windsled!

As an NEA Today writer, I've been thrilled to visit schools all over the country -- from Boise to Bar Harbor. But I am pretty sure this will become the WORST JOB EVER -- if my editors don't send me (immediately) to La Pointe, Wisconsin.

Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Check this out. It's a school bus on skis! Is that the coolest thing ever?? The New York Times reported on it last week, describing it as "mystery vehicle, with two large fans on the back." The locals know it as a windsled. "That's right: in one of the more unorthodox modes of student travel anywhere in the country, the children of La Pointe, on Madeline Island (full-time population 250, triple that in the summer), actually windsled to class several weeks out of every year."

The $500,000 "boatmobile" delivers about 20 students across the shifting ice of Lake Superior to the mainland town of Bayfield, in the upper northern region of Wisconsin. Although I think it's just about the coolest (and coldest) thing that I've seen, the kids are much more blase (as is their way.)

"It's just our life," one told The Times.

So, come on...

--Mary Ellen Flannery