Weather or whether?

Across North Country (any place north of Mexico) you can count on bad roads, ice storms, white outs and airport closings in late December. That’s 90%of the time and you can make book on it. That leaves 10% of the time to break out the snow throw and shovel. The question is, do you weather the storm like great, great, great grand father Ralph who tried to ford the frozen Mississippi River around Dubuque and wasn’t heard from for the next 5 months. He reappeared around Vicksburg, MS. in an amazing feat of cold water treading. Or do you head to Australia or a Caribbean Isle?

Like great, great grandpa Ralph I to was caught in a winter wonderland twice in my life. The first was on a return trip driving from Omaha to Northern Wisconsin. As a young family we’d driven down to spend the holiday with Rosebud’s family. As a young brain dead employee I was worried about making it back to work while driving on an ice cover I-80 & I-35.

Between Omaha and Death Moines we must have past a dozen jacked knifed trucks and that many cars all buried in the ditch line, then we headed north on I-35 thinking, "It can’t be any worst." I told myself. It was and my young family all had white knuckles. Yes, I should have parked it at the nearest motel and spent an extra day or two letting the road crews do their magic.

Twenty-five years later I was driving the East Coast and got nailed in a 40" storm that closed the East Coast for a week. Did I press on? Hell no! There is a time when gray hair "makes" you seem more mature. I just saw today's weather map and Denver is going to get hit again, isn't it time to drive to Aruba.

Thought of the day from Mark Twain... "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody dose anything about it. "