MINNEAPOLIS, MN - A few summers ago we were traveling out west by van, which, parenthetically, is my favorite way to get from point A to point B because you don't miss all of the great stuff along the way. We left El Paso, Texas that morning and headed toward California. As we passed through Arizona and New Mexico we noticed the temperature readout in the overhead display kept going higher and higher until it said 105°. About that time we needed to stop for gas and, well, you know, the call of nature.
When we left El Paso, it was probably in the 70s and for the entire morning the air conditioner in the van kept it a pleasant 72° inside. When we opened the car door, it was literally as if we had stepped into an oven. I remember making a mental note that the next time someone from the west said, "But it's a DRY heat..." I was going to slap them upside the head.
Today I am experiencing the polar (and I mean that in both senses of the word!) opposite. When I left Atlanta this morning it was in the 40s and pleasant. Today the high in Minneapolis is expected to be 2°. No, that is not a typing error... two degrees above zero!
I'm sure at sometime in my distant past I experienced temperatures in this range. I did, after all, spend the first eight years of my life in New York. But my body has long since forgotten what that feels like and certainly wouldn't register it as anything approaching "normal."
Prior to today, the coldest I ever remember being was a couple of years ago in Lower Manhattan. It was about 12° that morning and We were walking in the Financial district. The wind coming in off the Hudson River put the wind chill factor in a range that would make Nanook of the North seek shelter.
That doesn't even compare to the cold that welcomed me to the land of 10,000 lakes and Jesse Ventura this morning. One lady stepped off the plane and into the jetway and immediately said, "Holy icicles, Batman!" We all laughed. And the condensation from our laughs immediately froze and crumbled to the ground. OK, I'm exaggerating. But not much.
I couldn't help but wonder if folks up here make excuses to pretend that the cold isn't really cold like the folks out west do with the "it's a dry heat" fairy tale. What would they say? "It's a dry cold?" "It's a warm cold?" Or perhaps, "It's a wet cold?" (followed of course with the obligatory, "don'tcha know" which is the Minnesota equivalent of "y'all.")
My reply is it is a cold cold. A cold, cold, cold cold! The next time a Northerner says we Southerners are wimps, I promise I will heartily agree, The folks who live up here are made of sterner stock than I. My hat would be off to you, but then my head would freeze.
In case you were wondering, the low here tonight is supposed to go down to -13°. I can assure you, I will not be outdoors after the sun goes down this evening!
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