What Fun! Winter Driving In Minnesota

This indie author is one happy ol' girl today. Why? Because the Twin Cities got it's first "snow event" for the winter (Yes, it took until February 28th and we are very spoiled this year!) and she is sitting inside, not having to drive. I spent years as a road warrior on the freeways of the metro area selling print advertising. Seventeen years to be exact and not one accident. Thankfully.

Because of that I am very familiar with what happens during the first major snow of the season. First, you have the drivers that go five miles an hour on the freeway because a few random flakes are coming down. No, it is not slippery; and no there is not a problem with visibility. These could be people new to the area from warmer states. Yes, I would like to think that.  Unfortunately, too many of them have Minnesota license plates. Every year a certain percentage of people are totally taken off guard when a snowflake drops in the Land of the Frozen Tundra. Imagine! Snow in Minnesota!

Then we have the "let's hit the brake every 5 to 10 seconds to make sure I can stop, regardless of how many cars are behind me" and the "I can change lanes without looking or using a blinker AND I don't have to have more than two feet between cars to get in there...because I have SUPER POWERS! Of course, these people are on the freeway day in and day out, until they finally total enough cars that they get the message.  Hopefully they don't kill too many other people in the meantime.

Next is the macho man (or woman) with the pick up truck or SUV with 4 wheel drive. It does not matter if there is solid ice on the road! No! Their 4 wheel drive is special. It can go 70 miles an hour on ice!!! No other vehicle has been known to be able to do this, but they are the exception. Yup. They sure are. They fall into the exceptional ahole category. Thank you for risking other peoples lives while you try to make up for having a short...ah, never mind. Trying to be a bit less earthy.  For maybe two minutes.

Lastly we have the old reliable tailgator. They show up rain, sleet, snow and sun. It does not matter the weather, these folks need love so badly that they want to attach themselves to your bumper. It makes them feel like they belong. Oh, they belong. I am just not saying where.

Yes, it is a carnival on the freeways every time it snows! Stuntmen, barkers, magicians...spine tingling thrills every minute! I am so glad I did not have to buy a ticket to the carnival today. Can't say I miss Mr. Macho or Ms. Ineedafriend one bit.

Happy Driving. I think I will have another hot buttered rum and light the fire.
Then I will continue writing, while Mr. Super Powers once again performs his magic tricks on I-94.

Winter Reality in Minnesota (Stranger Than Fiction)

Ok. Wow.  I have lived in Minnesota for decades and winter has always been a miserable time of year.  I won't go into all the reasons I hate it because I have posted about that before.  But this winter?  If, as an indie author, I wrote a book and had winter in Minnesota like this winter people would say my work was fakey and unrealistic. Even Gastien did not have good enough drugs to imagine a winter like this for Minnesota.

Every year I pray that by some stroke of fortune we get through November without snow.  That makes the winter so much easier to mentally get through.  Snow usually comes in November, though. Sometimes quite a bit of it.  We normally get snow November through March.  March has a lot of melting and new snow.  Promises of spring peek through during the March melting days, making March tolerable.

Believe me, I remember the year of the Halloween blizzard.  Something like 28 inches over a couple of days.  If I recall, it started the day before the holiday.  We got stuck with all of our candy that year.  Gee.  Too bad!  :)
It also made winter seems about two years long!

This year, I crossed fingers, toes and eyes in hope of seeing a snow free November.  Bingo!  I got four corners, and by November 30th still no snow! Then December began.  Nothing.  The week of Christmas we got a dusting.  Christmas itself was not white.  Thank you Mother Nature!  I know, I know.  We need the moisture.  Shut up. We got an inch or so New Year's Eve.

Enter January (click on January to read about last year's typical January). Not this year! For the first ten days, not only did we not get snow, our temperatures continued to be more like late March or April.  We have consistently been in the forties, and sometimes in the fifties!  Yesterday was about 53 degrees!  So, not only do we not have snow, we have not been even close to the frigid temperatures we normally have.  Not once below zero, even at night.  I can only recall one night in single digits above zero.

Yes, this has been a winter to cherish.  Today it changes.  The temperatures drop and by tomorrow the high will be about sixteen.  We are supposed to get snow today and tomorrow.  Maybe three inches.  Still, this week is supposed to traditionally be the coldest of the year.  Sixteen?  Fine.  I'll take it.  Next week they are predicting a large snowstorm.

People keep saying "Oh, we will pay.  Just wait for January and February."  Hell, I don't care!  We shaved two and one half months off of winter!  It can snow every day for the next two months and I won't bitch once.  Well, umm, maybe a couple of times.  But I am so very grateful for this stranger than fiction winter!

I hope we do get a boatload of snow over the next two months.  I understand that plants and trees need it.  I am prepared to have miserable weather, just not for five months, thank you.  Two I can deal with.

Oh, and Mother (Nature)?  Please don't bitchslap me now and make me pay in April  That would NOT be nice.  I have been a good girl (as good as I can be) and every Minnesotan deserves a decent spring.  You don't have something awful up your sleeve for us, do you????

I am going to sneak off to lunch with a friend today, while the snow starts.  Perhaps dinner with friends tonight, unless it is too crappy.  Then I will stay home with my husband.  The next two days, I am inside.  By the weekend, 20's again.  It is usually WAY colder than that, so 20's will be great.

Ah, Minnesota.  The land where idiots still try to go out on the lake to icefish when it is slush instead of ice and fall through.  I have lost count of how many by now.  They should have their children taken away when they have subjected them to falling through thin ice. Someone should dole out mandatory intelligence tests to the males here.  It seems we have a higher than normal percentage of inbeciles.

Now I am off to find my boots.  Damn.  I have to wear them today.  Friday I had on birkenstocks with no socks.