Minot Deja Vu!

I woke up this morning to minus 12 degrees outside and the memories of Minot, North Dakota winters became crystal clear once again! Ah, yes, those sub-zero temperatures; the days of plugging in the car and still having to wait 10 or 15 minutes before the transmission fluid would warm up enough so that the stick shift would actually move. When baby Holly never saw the light of day when we went outside in the winter lest she get frost bite!

I remember the old orange 1970 VW bug we had whose heater didn't work. I would be all bundled up in my military cold weather gear in addition to the extra wool blanket wrapped around me while Mark drove the 17 miles to the base. He had to scratch a small hole on the windshield so he could see out the car window since the defroster didn't work either. I dreaded that cold drive, too....brrrrr! Funny thing was, in the springtime as Mark was cleaning the car one day, he discovered a disconnected tube and realized that had he checked it earlier, we would have had heat in the winter! Ah well...it built character. :)

Yes, winters in Minot were particularly challenging. The gas stations and base flight line shut down when wind chills got to minus 65 degrees. It hurt to breathe at that temperature. Skin would freeze in seconds so you basically covered up everything except your eyeballs!

Tonight's temperature is supposed to drop to minus 19 degrees. I'm glad that I don't work outside and I'm not homeless either. (I think Fort Collins does a good job of opening up churches as extra shelters for the homeless when it gets cold like this).

By Thursday, we'll be on a warming trend and temperatures will once again be above freezing! I'll bet the coldest place on earth where we've ever lived won't be above freezing until April.