[Ken 02/20/2015] One of the things I will miss about Evergreen is how beautiful a fresh snowfall can make a forest of Blue Spruce and Ponderosa Pine. Snow will transform a colorful mountain scene into something wonderfully monochromatic. It takes just a few inches to make everything smell so good; the world feels so untroubled and serene and clean. And cold.
Oh yea, it’s the cold that I have come to dislike so much. It makes my knees hurt. And my eyes glint. And my feet cold. One time we had an elk freeze to death in our front yard. It’s hard for me to believe that I used to tent camp with the Boy Scouts in every kind of weather condition in every Colorado winter month–the ground was so hard and so cold. I didn’t mind it then. I wonder what changed?
This is our last winter in Evergreen. There have been twenty-five of them for us. The worst were 1997, 1998 and 1999. The winter of 2003 was tough, too; we had a snow storm that dumped more than 4 feet of snow! We had to climb on top of the cars to shovel out. In the end, we had carved a car-width cavern through a 70-yards of snow; the door handles on the cars scraped grooves in both sides of the head-high snow gauntlet.
In every season we had a swimming pool sized glacier that would form about fifty feet down the driveway; it would last most of the full Winter season. I can't tell you how many times I took a slip and fell on that ice. Multiply my answer by two for the number of times that Deb fell.
Will I miss it? Shoveling and throwing out salt. Getting the tractor stuck in a drift. Snow-blowing up and down the long driveway until my fingers were frozen and I smelled like 2-stroke engine exhaust. Getting the truck stuck in a ditch hidden by a drift....
It's occurs to me that when the kids lived with us the winters did not seem so bothersome. I will always remember the sled rides down the hill in the front yard -- over the septic tank and into the tree! And when we pulled a sled into the back yard to cut down our first family Christmas tree. And games played with five foot long icicles (they were a poor excuse for a snack!).
I guess the snow was pretty great, after all. Just not the cold that comes with it. I wonder in how many ways the warmer Winters ahead will make fantastic new memories for Deb and me?
Oh yea, it’s the cold that I have come to dislike so much. It makes my knees hurt. And my eyes glint. And my feet cold. One time we had an elk freeze to death in our front yard. It’s hard for me to believe that I used to tent camp with the Boy Scouts in every kind of weather condition in every Colorado winter month–the ground was so hard and so cold. I didn’t mind it then. I wonder what changed?
This is our last winter in Evergreen. There have been twenty-five of them for us. The worst were 1997, 1998 and 1999. The winter of 2003 was tough, too; we had a snow storm that dumped more than 4 feet of snow! We had to climb on top of the cars to shovel out. In the end, we had carved a car-width cavern through a 70-yards of snow; the door handles on the cars scraped grooves in both sides of the head-high snow gauntlet.
In every season we had a swimming pool sized glacier that would form about fifty feet down the driveway; it would last most of the full Winter season. I can't tell you how many times I took a slip and fell on that ice. Multiply my answer by two for the number of times that Deb fell.
Will I miss it? Shoveling and throwing out salt. Getting the tractor stuck in a drift. Snow-blowing up and down the long driveway until my fingers were frozen and I smelled like 2-stroke engine exhaust. Getting the truck stuck in a ditch hidden by a drift....
It's occurs to me that when the kids lived with us the winters did not seem so bothersome. I will always remember the sled rides down the hill in the front yard -- over the septic tank and into the tree! And when we pulled a sled into the back yard to cut down our first family Christmas tree. And games played with five foot long icicles (they were a poor excuse for a snack!).
I guess the snow was pretty great, after all. Just not the cold that comes with it. I wonder in how many ways the warmer Winters ahead will make fantastic new memories for Deb and me?
regions to experience ... again!
[Ken 02/23/2015]
Somebody asked. It got me to thinking:
Somebody asked. It got me to thinking:
- Appalachia
- Boston Area
- The Civil War region
- Northern California
- Northern Idaho/Western Montana
- Northwest Washington State
- Oregon Coast
- Quebec City
- Silver Triangle, Colorado
- South-Central Utah
