LEWISTON – When the temperature climbed into the 60s Monday, Kelsey Lemieux, and Brook and Briannah James knew exactly what their Webster Street neighborhood needed.
A lemonade stand.
In tank tops and T-shirts, the girls sold lemonade and lemon-limeade for 75 cents a cup. They made $10 when they set up the stand Saturday and another $10 Sunday. On Monday, the latest in a string of exceptionally warm days, Kelsey, 7, Brook, 7, and Brianna, 9, figured business would be just as good.
People were out in force – walking, biking, jogging. After a long, snowy winter, it was time to celebrate.
“It feels like summer!” Brook said.
Mid-April temperatures are supposed to average in the 50s, but the Lewiston-Auburn area has been in the 60s and 70s for days. According to the National Weather Service in Gray, Sunday was the warmest day so far in 2005.
Monday was nearly as warm. Today promises to be close.
The wind, warmth and sun dried the ground surface, forcing the state to issue a fire warning. But while there was fire danger on the land, ice clung to the water.
At Lake Auburn, several men went fishing, anyway. They cast lines into the cold water from the shore.
“Ice-out,” the day when ice in the lake melts away and breaks, was still likely days away.
At the Fox Ridge Golf Club in Auburn, others couldn’t have been happier. Golfers streamed onto the green Saturday, Sunday and Monday for their first games of the season. Because of the nice weather, the course opened a week early.
“Sunday was probably our best day ever,” said Bob Darling, golf director at the club.
Across the bridge in Lewiston, customers mobbed the Dairy Joy parking lot for another first. They lined up for their first cones of the season.
“It’s beautiful out. We had to do something summery,” said Leeds resident Jane Kyllonen while her 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, sucked at her rapidly melting ice cream.
Down the street, Brenda Dufour took her white 2003 Harley-Davidson out for its first ride of the season, stopping at a friend’s house for lunch. The morning’s 50-degree warmth had proven chilly on the back of the bike, but by noon the weather was perfect.
She planned to take the motorcycle out again Monday night. And today.
“As long as the weather’s nice, I’m on it,” she said.
She should have good weather through Wednesday.
According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are supposed to stay unseasonably warm until Thursday, then dip back into April’s normal range: the 50s.
Despite that, Kelsey, Brook and Briannah planned to staff their lemonade stand all this week, straight through their school vacation week.
“Unless it starts to snow a little bit,” Kelsey said.
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