Last week was a cold week in America, everywhere it seemed, except in southern Oregon. After my six inches of snow and a good ski trip at Lake of the Woods, which was crowded with snowmobilers and children on sleds, suddenly the temperatures were in the fifties and everything was rain—which, of course, is a good thing, but it would be better if it were snow.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country was having a hard time of it. Eight degrees in Blue Ridge, Georgia, my sister reported. Minus four, said my friend in Boulder, Colorado.
I was so envious.
But not of conditions just north of me, where the world turned to ice. The phenomenon, my son explained, was that the rain froze when it hit the ground. Chaos ensued.
My nephew who works for the fire department in Portland said they were getting a thousand calls a day.
My nephew who lives in Pennsylvania had to bundle up indoors when the heater in his house broke and couldn't be fixed till parts came in. When he built a fire in a long-unused fireplace, the house filled with smoke, necessitating open windows on an in-the-teens day.
I might envy eight degrees and even four below, and certainly I wish my landscape would look like the pictures of snowshoe trips my Colorado friend sends me, but there are some parts of a hard winter I would just as soon avoid.
But I did ski at Crater Lake today, in perfect snow, with a deep blue sky filling the interstices of ink-dark clouds, occasional light snow kissing my cheeks, and snow-burdened firs on the distant mountains glowing in strips of sun. You see why I want more snow?
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