December, 2009

In the last week, I’ve driven to Fort Collins, New Mexico, Denver, Casper, Lander, Dubois, Casper and Denver and tomorrow Kansas City. Five states, seven beds, one suitcase packed and repacked.

We had enough dough for two houses.

My first Christmas away from home was low key and relaxing. I missed family and tradition, but I like stepping out of that box every once in a while. We baked and decorated gingerbread houses, ate good comfort food and went skiing — my first time in 10 years. A few minutes down the first run and I got my ski legs back.

I reported two outdoors stories for features on Monday and Tuesday — ice skating and snowshoeing — that took me to Lander and Dubois. Josh came with and took photos. Ice skating took a little longer to adjust to (it had also been 10 years since the last time I’d gone.) The packed snow wasn’t ideal for snowshoeing, but it was still a blast and made me think about buying a pair.

Snowshoeing in the Shoshone National Forest

Writing about something besides schools was refreshing. I’m lucky to work where outdoors stories are valued, where I can ask to go snowshoeing in northwest Wyoming and they say yes.

Wednesday was an office day. I thought I was going to get the shakes sitting in a chair for more than an hour at a time. After work, we headed south again. This time the destination is Kansas City for New Year’s Eve.

This is my first Christmas away from home. I’ve missed other events, but no matter where I am I always make it back to Illinois for Christmas. At first, we only had Christmas day off work. Although it falls on a Friday this year, flights home for that weekend were at least $550 from Casper and $350 from Denver, which isn’t really an option considering the possibility of winter storms. But I’m not sitting at home alone.

first Christmas dinner

Last weekend, two designers at work (and friends, despite the fact they went to Kansas) cooked a Christmas dinner complete with a turkey, green bean casserole and cheesecake with cranberries for dessert. The six of us are all from the Midwest — Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

The 3-foot tree I've had forever.

Christmas has been arriving on my doorstep every day. So far: books, pounds of almonds and a Calphalon grill pan.

I’m spending Christmas in the mountains in New Mexico, meeting Josh and his dad’s family at a vacation home. I have to go back to Wyoming to work for a few days.

I’ll watch the little ball drop in Kansas City on New Year’s Eve, a long-awaited reunion with my kind and talented friend Cat Szalkowski (who just completed a kick-ass photo project in Poland and is available for freelance work/full time employment.)

In between the drives, I plan to vacation as much as possible — reading, skiing, sleeping and making an awesome gingerbread house on Christmas. Gifts are wrapped. Shortbread cookies are in the oven. Just need to pack, work and leave.

Can you feel the cold? (back of the Star-Trib building)

It’s cold. For those of you who like numbers, it’s been negative numbers the past few days. About an hour ago it was -3 (feels like -19) and since has warmed up to 0, feels like -16. It was a real -14 when I woke up this morning. (All y’all down south complaining about 40s and 50s — stop.)

On my way home, I heard a metallic BANG from behind me. The case of pop in the backseat exploded. Cans froze and split in half. They busted holes in the cardboard box. Plus for subzero temperatures: It never got warm enough for the frozen soda to melt so cleanup was easy.

My poor car. Just six months ago I put it through 100+ degree heat in New Orleans. This morning the little temperature gauge said -5 and never went above 4. The streets are terrible. I see plows but I don’t think they’re actually doing anything except making huge walls of snow in the middle of the street. It’s only a matter of time before the car gets beached on one. Also, the plastic door handle snapped off so I have to roll down the window and open it from the outside. I blame the cold.

We got a few inches of snow over the weekend. It’s beautiful, but I can’t enjoy it when it’s this cold. No snowmen, snow angels, snow forts… Because I live in a basement apartment, I don’t even know how much has fallen until I have to push the door open to leave.

The ski area is set to open this weekend — right when we’re expected to warm up to 30s and 40s.