Out and About
One time while hiking in Breckenridge, Colorado, we traversed to a very high elevation and ran into ice. We hiked back down, went to an outdoor equipment store and purchased spikes for our shoes. We went back the next day and finished the hike. I still have the spikes and recently used them on another hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We had an awesome time, and I never once thought that I wasn’t a fan of snow, even though we saw a lot of it. I can, with 100% certainty, say I will never ski even though I have family members that live in Utah and some who love to ski. They have been all over the world including Canada and Japan to snow ski. I’ve been to Park City, Utah, several times, once during Thanksgiving and it snowed, and it was beautiful. And there was snow on the ground in the Rocky Mountain National Park and it was beautiful. Snow was in its element, and I was just a traveler and a spectator. Are you ready for the big “However?” HOWEVER, I did not sign up for eight inches in Navarre, Florida. I didn’t think it was awesome, and I did not enjoy it. I’m really trying not to be hard on myself for not enjoying it like a lot of people seemed to be doing. My daughter in Tennessee saw the pictures and called me to ask if I was now considering moving to Miami. The thought had crossed my mind…very briefly. She knows me. It was much colder out than I remember any other snow-covered area I had been to – maybe because of our high humidity? Perhaps I was wanting to get work done – and everything stopped. It was like an unscheduled vacation for everyone else, and I was working, helping get the road closures and other needed information out for our readers, which I did enjoy except that four hours would pass by and then eight and I didn’t get anything else done that needed to be done – before it snowed. We had a lot of social engagement on all our platforms. One of our videos had over 250,000 views and almost 2,000 reacted. It was a post about staying off the roads due to ice. Someone from way up north commented on the post and said that we were “soft” because ice on the road – was nothing. Well, he had his behind handed to him. Some wished him a Cat 5 Hurricane, and many were explaining to him how tough we are when dealing with hurricanes, heat and mosquitoes. It was basically a “one-up” match with about 100 people at a time. That was entertaining. I also chuckled at all the snow men on every corner and laughed some more when they started melting and heads were literally rolling.
Snow and Florida just don’t go together – especially 8 or 9 inches of snow. And it wasn’t as if that was a lot of precipitation – it wasn’t rain. Rain is much more efficient. Eight inches of snow at the temperatures we had equate to approximately 0.53 inches of rain. I obtained that measurement from a cool website named sciencing.com. I would have much rather had .53 inches of rain than 8 inches of snow. I understand that I sound like I’m being a snowflake about snow – but I live in Florida for a reason and that reason is the very low probability of snow.
Now that it is over…I hear there is another winter storm on its way – but probably not with snow. Snow can really hurt tourism in Florida and most of all our reputation of being a retreat from the SNOW. There is actually a town in Florida near the Everglades named “Frostproof.” We have a very lucrative snowbird market here, but they may be flocking further south next time. The tourism season for Naples, Florida (where I was born) is right now…not in the summer. Hopefully the “Snow in Florida” image doesn’t stick…just like the snow needs to do – not stick.
Quote of the Week: A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. Carl Reiner (1922 – 2020) was an American actor, comedian, director, producer, and recording artist.