Here’s the thing: we live in sunny southern California where last week temps topped 85 degrees – and I mean Fahrenheit. So guess where we decided to spend Thanksgiving? In Lapeer, Michigan, of course (and what I love about the city’s website is that there are few if any photos of the place in winter)! Michigan, as it turns out, is located in the northern portion of the United States and in the winter is subject to something called SNOW, wherein it gets colder than HELL and white powdery stuff falls from the sky and looks quite pretty until it lands on you and turns icy COLD.
But seriously, we anticipated this so a couple of days before we left went to REI and spent over $500 on cold weather clothes (my mother didn’t raise a fool). So when we landed in Detroit and stepped outside into what I can only describe as ARCTIC conditions, I felt pretty okay – cold but okay in my Vasque goretex boots and my ice and snow jacket with its polartec liner and my doofus polartec hat pulled over my ears. Yep, I felt a-okay. Thanksgiving was spent indoors eating large quantities of L-tryptophan-producing turkey so we pretty much forgot all about the cold and the fact that we were in Michigan. Today we woke up to a winter wonderland of white that looked like a Norman Rockwell landscape until we stepped outside. Brrrrr!!!!
Braving the cold, we drove to Dearborn and toured the Henry Ford Museum andd Greenfield Village. It was a very cool place, full of unexpected treasures: the chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated, the car JFK was riding in when he was assassinated…wait, that’s making the place sound like much more of a downer than it was. It also contained a stage coach, a hansom cab, old motorcycles, old bicycles, the Wright Brothers’ family home moved piece by piece from Dayton, Ohio and reassembled here, Henry Ford’s boyhood home, FDR’s limo, Theodore Roosevelt’s carriage, and the 15 millionth Model T assembled. We walked around as much of Greenfield Village as we could before we started to loose the feeling in our fingers and toes and realized that you need to devote a few days in good weather to really do the place justice.
Chuck and I had big plans to go running outdoors while we were here. So far we have wimped out and have been visiting a very nice fitness center nearby that has an indoor track and very adequate Weight room. We have vowed to run at least once outdoors, though so far have not seen one SINGLE OTHER person engaged in such an activity. However, the weather folk are predicting a warming trend so it’s my feeling Monday will be the big day for us. Temps are expected to be balmy – in the mid 40’s!
Oh, and here’s a stitch update: as scheduled on Wednesday night Chuck did the deed with tweezers and a cuticle clipper. All stitches were successfully removed and no blood was spilled – mine or his! I am now looking much less Frankenstein like. Pics will follow, once I get a cable to connect the camera to the computer (yay, this Best Western has wireless!).
Update: we actually ran outside on Saturday and it was very cold!!! We managed about half an hour running in snow and slush and dodging cars that were driving at what seemed like awfully usafe sppeds before I fely like my lungs were being seared and we headed back to the motel. Worked up a surprising sweat in that short time, though, and felt very virtuous for the rest of the day!