A Seasonal Preoccupation

I don’t know why so many Minnesotans are totally preoccupied with the weather, but a lot of them seem to be this time of year. When warmer winds prevail you hear a lot less about weather coming out of our mouths. But in the days during winter and prior to spring ‘springing’ there is nothing more we like talking about than wind chills, snow, ice and what we are going to do for a vacation to break up the winter. So to stay true to form I am going to talk about what we are going to do this winter to get away from the cold. We are packing up the hounds and taking our RV down to Florida to visit my parents, which will include a stop at a  campground at Disney World. We did the same thing last year, sans the Disney World stop, in the middle of an vicious snow and ice storm and let me tell you the trip down would top the ‘Tower of Terror’ ride at Disney World (which no one has been able to get me on yet, but I learn from others experiences pretty well). On the way down, I would have questioned our sanity, but really was too stressed to do so at the time. However, after having ‘made it’ through the last trip down I do have the time to question it now. Why in the world would we turn around and do the same thing again if it didn’t go too swimmingly last time?

The only excuse I can come up with that it gets so cold here, it actually freeze some of the ‘reasoning cells’ of the brain. The cells don’t thaw until the temp. stays consistently above 32 degrees Fahrenheit for at least a week. We will stay in Florida for about that long and start to regain our sanity right about the time we need to drive back. It is on the drive back that the cells begin to refreeze due to the lower temps we start to encounter on the trip north, and by the time we get back we are telling people how great it all was, because we really just don’t remember the drive until the summer months when we really aren’t that into talking about the weather or winter vacations. By the time the subject comes up again we are well into the winter once more and the cells freeze once again, just a vicious cycle that keeps a lot of us in an unconscious repetitive pattern. Not a pretty excuse but it is all I’ve got at –14.  However, it is supposed to reach nearly 34 ABOVE zero today and if the weather holds long enough, it is possible this winters trip could be canceled.