gimme' 20 degrees!

It'd still be 12 degrees or so below freezing, but 20 degrees would be at least tolerable for doing anything outside. This is brutally cold weather---never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what this felt like! Yesterday I walked a 10K circle through the woods in "minus degree/below zero" weather. The snow drifts are so frozen that most of the time you don't even sink into the snow. There's a crusty ice topping! Where the sun shows through, I sunk in up to the bottoms of my knees...but in the shaded areas the snow is frozen on top and you don't sink through.

My hands were so frozen that I couldn't unzip anything for about an hour after I thawed. You can't blink your eyes and when your eyes tear the tears freeze on your face! And if your nose starts to drip (inevitable), you'll have a frozen drop on the end of your nose. Jeeezz! even the scrapper has like a freezer burn on the palms of her paws---and she's growing hair on her tummy! Long hair! It's very cute to see her pink belly have this long fuzzy hair all over it where it's never been before.

Mike and I went to wash some of the salt off the car before dinner and after we washed and rinsed everything and were about to dry it off (We were indoors at an indoor car wash), the water froze before we could get to it. Ice sheets covered the windshield, mirrors and all the other windows so luckily we were close to home. And the water doesn't melt off over night and so it is still frozen. This is really really ridiculous weather. Off the hook.

And we are both tired of hearing about how "this is worse winter we've had in over 5, maybe 10 years", which all the locals tell us. It is what it is. What it is though is a very un-warm welcome to winter. I have a feeling it will be a long time before I will be able to ride outside. Last year when we were here, it had snowed...but it all melted and a couple of days after the snow storm, we were outside on bikes.

But, come on...20 degrees, please! (I already know I will get this wish...so I felt safe in asking) Hope you had a good weekend!