Phil Don't Know Winter

 

Punxsutawney Phil (pictured above from his Facebook page...) says that winter is going to be shorter this year.  Hooray for Phil.  How about you move your furry ass someplace where there is REALLY winter every year and THEN make your prediction?!

Winter is never short up here in Minnesota, though up until today the winter of 2015-16 was trying hard to give us a break.

However, this is today…the START of today.  It’s not even supposed to get heavy for a few hours.

 

To be fair, this winter really hasn’t been too bad for us all things considered.  We have had our lows to 20 below and our highs under zero, but that happens here.  It’s Minnesota after all.

When it’s -20 you can do a really neat trick: get some boiling (or near boiling) water and toss it out your front door.  It’s so damn cold that the water flash crystallizes and, voila, you have nearly instant snow!  It’s a hoot.  Unless you’re like several of the yahoos that made the rounds on YouTube a couple of years back who tossed boiling hot water INTO the wind and promptly burnt themselves.  It’s hard to believe that you even NEED to caveat an experiment like that with “now don’t toss the 212 degree water into the wind because it will blow back over you”, but apparently you do.

We embrace winter (to a degree) here in the northland.  Let’s face it, you kind of have to or you’ll drive yourself crazy.  Snowmobiling is obviously big here and there are more ski areas than you’d think given the topography but that crap is normal all over the northern tier of states.

We Ice Fish

That’s right.  We go out on frozen lakes, drill a hole and drop a line.  THAT’s how much we love our walleye. And beer.  There is plenty of beer out in the icehouses on lakes this time of year.  Some lakes take on the look of small cities.  The next time I’m up north or over by the Mississippi I’ll tweet a photo.  It’s incredible. 

We Raise Money

We do “Winterfest” and “Winter Carnival”. Vulanus Rex and his Krewe maraud joyfully throughout the Carnival and raise a ton of money for charity up in St. Paul.  Rochester’s Winterfest’s stated mission is “… to promote wintertime activities for all ages while raising awareness and funds for events sponsored by area nonprofit organizations.”  We leverage winter for charitable organizations.  THAT is the way you turn winter on its ass!

We Drink A Little

Another highlight here in Rochester every winter are the ice bars that pop up on the Peace Plaza for SocialIce.  Twelve themed ice bars, music and socializing in the heart of Rochester every February.  It’s our way of flipping the bird at Winter.  And drinking outside.  Drinking outside is kind of our thing.

None of this changes the fact that winter is indeed a pain in the ass.  A few years back we had a foot of snow in May.  There was once a blizzard that cancelled Halloween. All the celebrating in the world doesn’t change the fact that -20 is freaking cold, (and no, that does NOT include the wind chill – counting wind chill is for sissies!), that snow sucks (especially when you move into the prime ‘you can die from shoveling age’ like I have) and winter is way too long. 

Not matter what some jackass hedgehog in Pennsylvania says.