I Just *looooove* Winter.

Yeah yeah just call me the ice queen of the north.

I win for now. If we had more Russians or people from places like winnipeg, or as they call it, winterpeg, on here I might be unseated, but for now the ice cold throne is mine (brought it back 'round to toilets).

 

A lot of places in Boston have coat check rooms. The attendant gives you a numbered claim check, and you tip them a dollar or two. Of course, if you don't feel like spending the money, you can still carry your coat around with you. I wish that idea would catch on around here. I'd make use of it at shopping malls, indoor sports events, and concerts.

Unfortunately, winter motivates me to do almost everything in the suburbs, and nothing downtown. in the suburbs, I can park reasonably close to the door of a business. Downtown, if I'm lucky, the nearest parking deck will be no more than two blocks away, and the tall buildings funnel the wind and make it feel twice as cold as anywhere else.

I may start liking holidays again, now that my mother-in-law is so pissed off with us that she doesn't want us to visit anymore. She used to make every holiday miserable with her horrible attitude. No more! Time off can be fun if you can avoid piece of shit relatives.

I think you'd find the southern half of the US to be a big improvement over your present situation. The weather was about the only thing that prevented me from moving to Canada during the George Bush years.

 

Some friends and I went camping off the parkway in early October a few years ago, too early to close the gate but there was an unexpected snow storm and it was beautiful. It really makes me wish they kept the parkway open in the winter.

That's why I love winter though, it is my favorite time for camping, hiking, getting out in nature. When I go hiking in the summer I'm usually too worried about snakes (or alligators if I'm near the coast) to really enjoy myself.

 

See that's why I'm reluctant to leave canada though. The winter might kill you, but no snakes or gators or anything else will. We don't even get tornadoes or earthquakes where I live.

 

Same here in the netherlands. As long as the levees don't break it's easy living

 

There were a lot fewer gates in the early eighties. Most of it was open all year, but they had snow warning signs. The only people who tried it were owners of Jeep Wranglers and CJ's with oversized tires, and even then the dry snowdrifts at higher elevations often made it hard to figure out where the road was. The guy I was living with at the time took me up there several times. Sometimes you could find yourself on a mountain by yourself! You could do whatever you want; get out and do snow angels, park in the middle of the road, have oral sex, smoke a joint, whatever. Great memories.

Then the SUV revolution hit, and suddenly half the idiot drivers in America had 4WD, but no knowledge of how to use it or their own limitations. Park rangers were rescuing morons in Ford Explorers every day. During the next two summers, gates went up everywhere.

In the Great Smokies, there's one old dirt road parallel to I-40 that still stays open all year long, because it's the only alternative for locals when I-40 gets blocked by a slide. Most of the land is in the park, but there are a few side roads leading to clusters of houses. That road gets in really bad shape after Christmas; great fun in a Grand Cherokee! My husband says it was some of the most challenging driving he's ever done. I remember going up one hill sideways, because the front wheels were in one set of ruts and the rear wheels were in a different set.

Grandfather Mountain opens after every snow, as soon as they have time to run the plows, and Beech Mountain is a good stop in winter even for non-skiers because they have a cool bar and restaurant near the top with great views of Sugar Mountain and Grandfather.

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the infamous Sugar Mountain condo building is on the right, and the southwest end of Grandfather is on the left.

Gators have to stay close to swamps and bayous.

I usually hike in shorts or a short skirt and sandals, so I avoid narrow trails that have high grass growing very close to the path, where snakes can easily hide. That's rarely a problem for me. Every summer, I find many scenic places to walk where the grass is kept back a sufficient distance. Most of our mountains don't have enough topsoil to grow grass, and it won't grow in the shade along forest trails. I've seen plenty of snakes over the years, but I stopped well short of them and gave them time to wander off.

If you wear hiking boots that come above your ankle and long jeans that are not too tight, you can walk anywhere you want and not worry about snakes. My approach lets me check for ticks quickly, easily, and often. Hard to do with long pants.

 

the "holiday season" is basically late fall though. winter doesn't usually hit hard until the end of the holiday season, or right after. january and february are when the weather is worst, and the only holidays then are valentine's day and martin luther king day.

 

Winter makes me depressed, seriously. The short gray days, the inability to step outside at leisure and take long walks or hikes without bundling up. I get cabin fever. Winter is cute until January 1st, and then it loses any charm it had during Christmas.

 

You are a sick, sick, man...

 

Doesn't sound like you'd fair too well where I live either, even if you aren't putting me down or whatever. Gets just as murderously cold in the middle of alps than it does in places of Russia and Canada.

Im much better suited for it though. I love the feeling of my skin shrinking on my back as the frost lands on itand I love feeling the sun stretch the skin back out + all I said originally.

I think it's an unfair statement to assume somewhere else is colder and someone else lives in a tropical paradise because you yourself don't like winter.

 

I just woke up from a nap and am obviously still half asleep. Of course you meant sturdy flats, I was picturing you in red spiked heels. Wake up, Luce!

I highly second that sentiment. Poor, poor Asmo.

P.S. Sorry for the huge picture above. It looked nowhere near as big when I posted earlier on my mobile.

 

The only part of my body that gets really really cold other than my face are probably my toes but that's because I mainly wear steel capped footwear when walking. My fingers get cold too but I just slap a big tree and make them throb and then they're warm forever after.

The thing that makes me cold is really only the wind and not the temperature so much. When the air is still it could be -15 and I'd stroll on out and I loooove stepping on ice sheets and hearing the cracklings. If there's wind then it's terrible but mornings are generally quite nice.

I wouldn't even say I have proper winter jackets are anything. I have really good jumpers, I suppose they look bulky, but it saddens me that there's a mentality that women still have to look good while trying to keep warm. Still, with my random kept hours and what I do, I still see them all with the leggings and the knee highs. That might be because I don't go out to the slopes or anything and you don't really club in snow gear.

My dog too is obviously suited to cold climates, he's in his own elements, sticks his head right into the snow etc.

Another thing I love to do is track wild animals and the wolves that come from the Italian alps are easier to track when their paw prints are surfaced.

 

Queen of the thread ATM, but if Korrysa_RUS posts here, you are unseated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakutsk

 

It's true that there are just some people who like colder weather better than others. In fairness though, Canada has much colder winters than most of Europe, including Germany. The warmest spot in Canada in winter (Vancouver?) is probably much warmer than the coldest spot in Germany though.

 

And if we're being real here, most of us would probably love winter if we could see the Alps daily. I know I would.

 

I googled average Vancouver winter and got an average of 4*. The average for the same month where I live was 6* colder. =p
My perfect weather is a mere -2*c - 4*c, that's where I can comfortable go outside and do my gardening without sweating or over heating which I am prone to. But then there's -4* still and -4* with wind. Both different animals altogether.

I personally don't start feeling a difference from the extremes past -5*. Once it's -5 or less it's just cold. -7* is great for getting around and not over heating. When we got our -20s last winter I remember I was always out early in the morning when the temps dropped. We'd sit outside under the big roof heaters with our coffees watching the sun come up. I think I really fell in love with coffee this year hehe.

I think just hating on winter is such a trendy adventure for everyone, just makes me think of a pack of old body nancies having a whinge at life in a mothers group. Whereas I'm like, skirts off girls blouses, grow a pair and start living.

 

That's probably true. I think we should all start posting pictures of our surroundings so we can get a gauge of what we look at all the time lol. I could imagine if you lived in somewhere freezing with a flat Barron landscape then yeah, I'd see that as a bit depressing. I get to look at the mammoth rocks though >.> but the most beautiful thing in the alps is simply the town itself. It's so old fashioned seemingly lined with wooden cottages and all the cute framed huts people love to see. I'll post pics later.

 

This is where I live.
These are just images I pulled from google. I'm not very good with my hand shaking to do good panoramic shots. Most of my photos of the town seem to be the cute flower beds on the houses which we pay an awful amount for to avoid taxes.
There's like a rule where, they council likes all the properties to be in order with one another, for the tourism sake. We spend a small fortune on flowers and flower beds per year and we plant and make all districts relatively in unison with one another. Upgrading the scenery of your personal property voids paying taxes, but, if you don't want to plant the flowers you pay the taxes. Most folk get the flowers as it's inevitably cheaper than the taxes.

I don't have balcony to plant the garden beds, but the garden bed in my front yard is adorned in red flowers when they bloom. For some reason our part of the district tend to be red flowers. I live in a relatively new district, so it's not all oldern style houses and frames etc. Our place is quite modern.

 

I know this isn't going to fit the image a lot of people have of me, but I don't do spike heels very often.

For various walking surfaces, I have hiking sandals from Teva and Keen, but you might be surprised at what I can accomplish in plain old black rubber flip flops, the kind Old Navy sells for a dollar at their end of summer sale. If the trail surface is really great, I may slip them off and carry them for a while, just because I can.

 

I like doing that as well. I have some Birkenstock's that have taken me miles in comfort. I climbed a mountain in a skirt last fall, and it was great, freedom of motion, easy to check for ticks, which are a huge worry around here.