In a Winter Wonderland Snow is Beautiful and Irresistible

Rave Reviews Made Sensational Scenery Even More Exciting

Dear Reader,

I would like to thank Dr. Preeti Singh from Reciprocal for the writing prompt provided for this article. She wrote an article that provided examples of her specific great memories “in the snow”. I read her article titled Snow Makes the Earth Glitter and Sparkle with a Fluffy White Blanket.

She mentions India and taking a group of some 30 students on an excursion, she also mentions Kashmir and how she made snowballs and threw them and also made a snowman. That sounded like great fun!

The last example she provided was a trip to Toronto, Canada (Newfoundland) to visit a friend and their trip to Niagra Falls. I am happy for her to have had such great experiences “in the snow”. She goes on to say that it does not snow where she lives. I can see why being “in the snow” was important for her and that she enjoyed the opportunities.

Introduction

I love snow too and believe right after it has fallen that the blanket of white all over everything is beautiful. I recall the good times I had when I was a kid. Sliding down hills on a sled or inner tube.

It was a lot of fun. That said, viewing and playing in the snow is part of enjoying it. There is also a lot of work that goes along with it. My experience “in the snow” has been in many locations and many fun times.

I also remember though that I spent many hours of back-breaking work outside in extreme temperatures. I lived in cold climates where snow removal was a part of life that took some getting used to.

Childhood in Ohio

I had to remove the white stuff so that other people could walk on the sidewalks and drive in a safe manner. For the first 10 years of my life, my family (Dad, Mom, and three siblings) and I lived in Ohio.

As a child, I was exposed to winter, snow, and all the fun things that went with it. I can remember having sleds to slide down hills.

I also remember when my dad built a toboggan sled (he is a very talented man with many skills and can make anything with wood, metal, etc.,). We lived on a farm with hills nearby. My life has been blessed with good things and great opportunities, but I think that the farm in Ohio had to have been the best place I lived as a kid.

Dad would load us kids onto the toboggan sled at the top of a steep hill and we would slide down the hill going what seemed to me to be a breakneck pace. That sled moved faster than anything I had ever been on. When folks use the term “greased lightning” I think I know what they mean. We had a wonderful time.

Colorado

When I was 10, we moved to Colorado (lived there for 3 years) and that is a great state to live in for anyone that loves sledding, skiing, ice skating, etc., We lived near the Rocky Mountains and all the beauty they provide. My family and I attended a church where my siblings and I also attended a youth group.

This youth group took advantage of the winter weather, several times we went to the mountain ski resorts to go skiing and sledding. I never tried to downhill ski, but we did have a great time sledding on inner tubes from large truck tires. The mountains where we went sledding were very steep and you could get going very fast!

Minnesota

When I was a junior in High School our family moved to Minnesota. Again, the church where we attended had a youth group. We went several times to go sledding on the hills. Yes, Minnesota has hills that you can ski or sled on.

Hard to believe as the area where we lived was about as flat as a tabletop. It was a fun time had by all that attended. After 2 years there I went into the military (United States Air Force).

During the time that I was in the military (29 years), I got married, and my wife and I had three children. The military had a penchant to move folks around and so we moved from one location to another about as often as other families did.

The cold weather climates we lived in during this time were Ohio (I was single and so I did this tour alone for 2 years), North Dakota (married and with family we spent 5.5 years), Alaska, (7 years), and again North Dakota (2 years).

To say that we had snow in Ohio would be an understatement. While stationed there a snowstorm occurred where traffic was stalled and trapped on the freeways.

The National Guard had to be flown in from Kentucky to evacuate the hundreds of people stranded in their vehicles. I also remember shoveling a lot of snow from sidewalks and loading ramps.

North Dakota

In Grand Forks, North Dakota we had record snowfalls and extreme temperatures. We had to shovel snow from sidewalks and driveways 3 to 4 times each day.

It seemed like the wind blew all the time. Our family would go sledding from time to time and enjoyed that. We made many good friends here as well.

Alaska

Our move to Alaska was monumental. I had always wanted to go to Alaska but had never thought about living there until the Air Force decided to move us there. On one of the first nights there, we heard that it might snow. We had no idea that we would wake up to 17 inches of white fluffy stuff on the ground.

By the end of our time there, our children were old enough to get their driving licenses. Being a brave soul, I taught them to drive.

We loved where we lived. We had a picture window in our living room where on a clear day you could see Mount McKinley. In our backyard, we had a beautiful view of Bear Mountain, one of the mountains of the Chugach Mountain Range.

We had the opportunity to climb this mountain several times. We had plenty of opportunities to go sledding while living in Alaska. Our eldest two children finished High School here.

The picture above was about 2 miles from our home when we lived in Alaska. Once the snow started to fall you did not see the ground again for between five and six months. It was not unbearable cold there except for about 2 weeks in January.

Darkness was a factor though. The closer you got to the winter equinox the longer the darkness stayed. This made it challenging to keep the driveway to our home free of snow. It also presented many people with a cold hard case of cabin fever.

We were there for 7 years and in one of those years, we had more than 12 feet of standing snow. It was amazing how fast the city snow removal crews got done with the removal from the streets of the town. We had never seen that much snowfall in our entire lives.

North Dakota Again

The second time we lived in North Dakota we lived in the Minot area. They get lots of snow and very cold weather there. By then our 2 eldest children had moved out of our home and into their own and were raising children of their own.

One in Tucson Arizona and one in Marshall, Minnesota. We still had our youngest child with us, by now she had finished High School and was enrolled and attending college.

We did not spend much time outdoors while at home, but I was outside quite often in the job that I was doing there to help other people remove snow and ice. The people in that location are second to none in their hospitality and the way they care for each other.

When I look back at my life and the amount of time I spent in cold weather with and without snow it is significant. I believe the total would be about 30 years. So, I guess you could say that I have some experience in the snow both playing in it and working with it.

My wife and I live in Florida now where we are retired from the government and have no plans to move back to a snowy state where the climate is cold, and it snows. Still, we did enjoy our time with our family in the areas where we lived and worked.

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