Winter arrives with all the grace of a sledgehammer

Well, when you mess up, the best thing to do is just confess and get it over with. Two weeks ago, my parents visited, and while I could have put together a blog post between visiting with them and seeing two awesome musicals, I also had the mother of all colds, which meant that my schedule went like this: wake up exhausted, go to work, come home, have dinner with parents, sleep for an hour, spend time with parents, go to bed early, lather, rinse, and repeat for five days straight. I managed to sleep pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday, and the next week was all about playing catch-up, which included more trips to Subway than any man should ever make in a week. This is admittedly my fault, but I was also trying to make up for lost time in the gym and at kendo practice. In the craziness, things like this blog got sadly neglected, and I apologize to my legions of listeners who were waiting at their monitors with bated breath.

That being said, in a previous journal entry, I had talked about how mild the winter of 2011-2012 was. I made one or two statements to the effect that winters out here were usually harsh, but not this year. I also may have wondered how long this could last. Two weeks ago I got my answer—more or less the day after I wrote that stupid journal entry.  It wasn’t just any snowstorm, either. No, it had to be a blizzard. An honest-to-goodness blizzard, albeit not one that shut the entire town down. It did give us about five or so inches of snow, and kept the traffic moving at speeds where most cars regularly got passed by snails heading south for the winter.

So I’m sitting in my apartment, a cup of tea beside me, and I figured I’d talk a bit this time about Cresco in winter. The feel of the whole town actually shifts a little, in my opinion.

First, there’s the Cresco Fitness Center. The place is practically overrun with people and activities from December to April, when the weather finally starts to break. This is partially because January is the month where people stop feasting, snacking and partying, get up on a scale, and promptly swear that they will eat right, they will go to the gym every single day and they will lose all the weight they gained and then some, a vow which usually lasts until about sometime in February, where people realize a.) weight doesn’t come off as fast as it goes on and b.) workouts actually require work. Until then, several people go to the fitness center, sign up for a few memberships, and spend a few sessions figuring out that buying the next size up in jeans is less tiring. It’s also mostly because the Cresco Fitness Center is home to a lot of what I suppose could be called “Intramural” sports—basketball teams and volleyball teams mostly, although there are some beginner gymnast classes, too. The divisions are pretty simple, just adults and children, and they’re not really playing for anything more than bragging rights. While I’m sure there are one or two people who take the competition entirely too seriously, as though an NBA scout might be hanging around Cresco waiting to snatch up some undiscovered talent, I am heartened to report I have not encountered anyone remotely like this. The Cresco Fitness Center is also hosting what they call a “Take Your Time” Triathalon, which basically means by April 28 you have to swim 10 miles, run 100 miles and bike/elliptical 200 miles. Rather, *I* need to do this, as I signed up for the event. We’ll see how tough I am, apparently.

Another thing that changes about Cresco in the wintertime is that snowmobiles come out to play. I cannot for the life of me figure out why snowmobiles are so popular in rural areas, and it’s especially confusing when you consider that there doesn’t seem to be much crossover between people who own other vehicles, like motorcycles. If I had to guess, I’d say snowmobiling is seen as safer than motorcycling, since if you fall off a snowmobile you land on snow instead of asphalt. Which is false, by the way, but we won’t get into that right now. The point is that immediately after sunset you can hear the buzz ofsnowmobile engines tearing around the outskirts of town, sounding like lions with particularly bad head colds.

I have to admit, I’m not a huge snowmobiling fan, mostly because the demographics tend to favor the young and foolhardy and the people who like to have a few drinks before they go out on their machines. This is what is known in the scientific world as “a recipe for disaster.” The mitigating factor, though, is that Iowa, being Iowa, has miles of snow-covered farmland which is great for snowmobiling. For those in need of a bit more exploration, the area around Decorah is filled with hills, cliffs and a ton of neat geography that I can see having a lot of fun exploring in an off-road vehicle. I will just say, though, if you do go out in one of those things, be careful. I had mentioned in a previous blog entry about seeing some roadside memorials on the top of about a twenty-foot cliff. Now that the snow has covered the roads and I see the snowmobile tracks layered on top of each other like coats of paint applied by a painter on LSD, I can come up with a couple of plausible, yet disturbing scenarios that involve someone on a snowmobile and a Wile E. Coyote-like drop.

Finally, there are the bars. There are at least five bars that I know of in a two-block radius in Cresco, which is kind of impressive and sad at the same time. I can’t really blame anyone in the winter for spending their Saturday nights indoors, with friends, and having a drink or two. The thing about bars, though, is that the people who hang around them are really not the people that you see in beer commercials. Most of them look kind of used up and sad, actually, like they would like to have something else to do but they don’t know what else is out there. I wonder if they’re aware of all the programs that the Cresco Fitness Center offers.

So that’s winter in northeast Iowa. We’re all hunkered down out here, peering through our windows and listening to the sound of lions with head colds out in the distance. Personally, I can think of much worse fates.

The Winter That (So Far) Wasn’t

I’ve been saving a particular topic for a while now. It’s something that is definitely cool in northeast Iowa. Downright frozen, in fact. I’m referring to the Iowa winters, which hold the record as the coldest winters I’ve ever gone through, and I’ve gone through northern Michigan winters. For those of you not accustomed to northern Michigan winters, you learn to get used to having three to four inches of snow dumped on you during the average snowfall, and temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit are pretty much a way of life until about April. I thought I knew all about cold and blowing and feeling as though you were lost in the Antarctic.

Then came Iowa, and Minnesota for that matter. Both places manage to get just as cold as northern Michigan, but northern Michigan has trees. You don’t know just how important trees are until you’re in a place where trees aren’t vast forests that spring up around you, but little clumps that occasionally appear on the horizon. Trees are the best windbreakers ever, and it’s only when you’re in an area with no trees do you realize how nice that is. Out here, windchill is a thing to be feared. I used to laugh when I would get email notices at my job telling us that schools were closed due to windchill, and then I tried walking from my apartment to the Cresco Fitness Center in the winter. I won’t say the decision almost killed me, but by the time I arrived at the gym I was praying that the weather would warm up at least a degree or two, or that the wind would stop blowing for five minutes. Admittedly, during the walk back the wind did stop blowing for a second or two, before starting right back up again. You may not believe me when I say the wind was consciously taunting me, and if you don’t you have never lived in Iowa.

Windchill takes a day which is only normally damned cold and turns it into weather you more commonly found in the Antarctic. It’s actually hazardous to go out when the windchill drops the temperature below -30, and after you’ve spent, say, five minutes having below freezing air cut through your lined pants as though they didn’t exist, you’ll develop an appreciation for the Great Indoors.

By itself the windchill would be bad enough, but then there are the blizzards. Northeastern Iowa attracts blizzards like cigarettes attract welfare queens, and once a blizzard comes through, all you can do is stay indoors. Granted, I say this as someone who has gone out during blizzards twice, and both times I’ve been confronted by snowdrifts that close off all but the middle of the road, miles of sheer ice and whiteout conditions that limit visibility to maybe ten feet in front of you if you are lucky. An Iowa blizzard can force pretty much all businesses to close for the day, and that includes fast food restaurants and gas stations.

So this winter, I was ready. I was going to document all the Iowa winter in its snow-filled, ice-coated business-closing glory. I was going to talk about the awful majesty nature can sometimes call forth, and how it makes me feel just a little less safe than I usually do, as though I’m at the mercy of what may be a capricious, random climate. I’m telling you all this information so that when I say that for the past month the weather has been absolutely beautiful you can get the full force of the irony. Most of the time, the weather has been in the 40s, which is positively balmy compared to your average winter. There has been some snow on the ground, which left the day after it came, and most people are out and about enjoying this weather.

If you were to ask most people how they feel about this weather, they’ll tell you they are relieved. Most people in Cresco look upon winter the same way Cinderella looked upon her evil stepmother—you have to live with her, but it’s always such a joy when she doesn’t show. On the other hand, people don’t seem to have altered their winter habits any, either. People are still cooped up inside, watching TV, and most people take care not to be outside for longer than they can help it. It’s like they’re on autopilot somehow. They know they don’t have to stay inside this winter, but they still do anyway. I have two theories about this.

The first theory is that everyone knows the weather is supposed to be colder and nastier, but no one really wants to come out and say so. We all know the weather’s doing all it can do to be winter around here, so why not just dress warmly and trundle to and from our cars everyday anyway? It’ll make the weather feel like it’s done its job.

The second theory is that, for all its inconvenience and pain, there are a lot of great things to do when you’re cooped up indoors. You can catch up on DVD and TV watching, for instance, or you can read that book that you’ve just never had the time to pick up. Winter is perhaps the best season for forcing people to relax, and while we could all just go about doing things outdoors and trying to get all the projects on our ever-present to do list done, it’s nice to have a season that forces us to relax for a bit. No one really wants to give that up. So we’ll gladly go to our homes, dressed warmer than we need to, and then kick off our shoes, pull up a chair and just relax. Some people will turn on the TV and watch the game. Others will fire up that new video game. Still others will finally watch that movie they’ve been wanting to for years. Others may also surf the web for a few hours, grateful that for a few weeks they have an excuse for spending so much time on it.

Winter in Cresco

One of the big things about living in northeast Iowa, and I think I have mentioned this before, is that the winters can be brutally cold. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say “brutally cold,” I am talking temperatures that regularly fall past ten below zero, measured in Fahrenheit. Add in some windchill unimpeded by trees, and you have temperatures comparable to what you might find in Antarctica.

At this point, some snow has fallen, but it’s not the kind of snowfall that really signifies winter is here. It’s more the accumulation of one or two light snowfalls, coupled with the kind of ice that a few alternating temperatures above and below the freezing point can produce. It’s unusual, because by the time the middle of December starts coming up, at least one blizzard, with white-out conditions and enough snow to literally shut down the town has arrived. It’s an adventure when this happens, but it’s not exactly something to look forward to. I’ve ventured out in two blizzards so far, once because I had to get to work and once because I severely underestimated the strength of the snowstorm, and both times have been two driving experiences I am not anxious to repeat. As much as I’d like to regale you with double-fisted stories of what driving in a blizzard is like, there’s not much to tell. Mostly you drive along at speeds under 25 mph, and sometimes even that can feel much too fast when the snow reduces visibility to maybe five feet in front of you. You grip the steering wheel until the blood drains from your fingers, and you feel your car slide along the highway as you fight to keep it in your lane.

On the other hand, if you are a farmer, this why you probably have at least two vehicles that are equally at home plowing through the snow or being used as a mobile base of operations in Afghanistan. It’s easy to tell who the farmers are in Iowa because of their utter nonchalance in winter weather. Worrying about the roads is for people who have vehicles that need to travel on them. I think the only kind of weather that might stop a farmer is a hurricane, and I have to be honest, I can’t really see a farmer worrying that a tornado will pick up one of those monster tractors and move it any appreciable distance. In fact, I can see farmers making safety plans if a tornado does approach. “Get into the tractor!” they’d say, and then practice drills for which child works the accelerator and the brake.

One of the nice parts about winter in Cresco is that the Catholic church has started playing Christmas Carols. It sounds like they are being played on a carillion, and while I suspect that’s probably not true, they’re definitely being played live. It’s one of the all-time greatest things about living where I live. There’s nothing like listening to Christmas carols echoing throughout the town at night. It makes everything seem very, very peaceful.

Now that the crops have been harvested, the deer are a lot more visible. For you hunters reading this, apparently the state of Iowa frowns on the use of high-powered rifles in northeastern Iowa. The firearm of choice is shotgun slugs, which seems to be missing the point to me. After all, you’re hunting for meat, and I would think a shotgun slug would damage quite a bit more of it. Then again, I can see why Iowa doesn’t approve of hunting with a high-powered rifle and scope when you can see a deer coming literally over the horizon. I’ve never hunted with shotgun slugs, but those who I’ve talked with say that it’s like throwing a baseball—you have to take into account the drop in height the further away your target is. Depth perception is a crucial skill when hunting in Iowa.

So that’s winter in Cresco, at least initially. I’ll be honest, I was hoping to have a nice blizzard to talk about, and perhaps get some shots of people wading through the sidewalks up to their knees. On the other hand, if you think for one second I’m going to bemoan the fact that six inches of snow hasn’t made moving outdoors all but impossible, you’re crazy.