I was well warned about winters here in Minnesota, but I didn’t listen. I was excited that I would get an actual winter season, there was plenty to do in the snow, it couldn’t be that bad. Then winter came to Minneapolis.
Dear god.
It was, so I’ve been told, a mild winter. The temperature barely dropped below 10 minus zero. Most days ran a balmy 5 degrees. For me, it was wonderful until December 31st when I decided that all the snow needed to go away because it wasn’t Christmas anymore. That winter was the first time in almost ten years that I saw the temperature fall below zero and the first time in two years that I saw snow.
I acclimated to my environment, while I’m not quite the snow bunny; I’ve come to appreciate the three months of warm weather we get here. During Thanksgiving weekend I drove back to Indianapolis where it was rainy and about 20 or 30 degrees. I was excited, t-shirt weather! My family thought it weird that my children and I were all running around without winter coats. It was so nice out; I even took the kids to the park to play.
This winter was tough for me. I moved to Elk River, which is fifty some odd miles North (yes I moved even more north) west of the Twin Cities. The house is down a dirt road (yes they still have those) and in the middle of the state forest, beautiful to go walking in as long as it isn’t hunting season. So far I’ve been snowed in four times for about two or three days each time. I’ve drove off the road while coming around the dirt road curve and since triple A is like a mafia collector I had to dig my car out of the ditch by myself. I don’t have a horn anymore because of the impact and probably would have gone through the windshield if I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt. It took me three hours to get out of the ditch, three days passed before I was warm again. I was lucky it wasn’t during one of the winter warnings where you get frostbite on exposed skin in less than three minutes.
Oh, but it was beautiful this year.
The snow was perfect, light and powdery, great for all things outdoors. Skiing was great, the ice was perfect for fishing and skating, the lake was freezing enough when you jumped in it on New Year’s Day (a habit I’ve picked up the first year I moved here). The horses, one white and three bays, looked so majestic with a thin layer of snow on their backs. Every time you looked out the back door across the deck to the wetlands in the back yard, it looked like a field of diamonds.
About a week ago I was coming home from school. It was about noon and incredibly foggy. So foggy I couldn’t see past the end of my hood. I was driving up one of the back roads and the wind blew the fog aside just for a moment, and you could see nothing but a perfect field of white on either side of the car and white fog ahead. This is what I imagine the trip to heaven will be like.
Next Thursday I’ll be travelling to England for my thirtieth birthday, and I have to say that I will miss the winter here. I sincerely hope that it won’t all melt while I’m away.