It's a Good Thing....

I told someone yesterday that it's a good thing that the UP is a big secret to most people.

Or else everyone would be trying to live here.

Really.

The snow has started.

I think.

Finally.

It is dangerous and so beautiful at the same time.  I have lived through a white-knuckle trip through the Military Hill area, which was made easier because of the fact that I wasn't driving, and my husband was (slowly), and that I could see that the county road trucks were busy going up and down to get the ice and slush and snow under control so everyone would live to tell about their own white knuckle experiences.

Not surprisingly, people talk about the weather a lot in the UP.   There are more reasons for that than you might think.

First is because there are FOUR VERY DIFFERENT seasons up here.

I used to live in the land of hot humid summers, followed by Indian summer, followed by a sudden shift to cold and ice.  Then a long winter of terrible wind chills and not a lot of snow. Followed by a couple of days of spring and then eighty degree weather, leading back in to hot humid summers.

Up here, summers are long and mild.  People tell you to enjoy the weather if it occasionally gets above eighty.  It means they can dip their pinkies in Mighty Gitchigumi without hypothermia.

June might be a little too early to try this.

Or maybe not.


Autumn is a long period of gorgeous fiery foliage, gradually cooling temperatures. I like how there seems to be enough of it to enjoy both subtle changes sometimes, and sometimes huge gluttonous swipes of God's paintbrush.  God is the Van Gogh of autumn.

Winter...well...it's BIG NEWS every day.  This year, it's slow to get rolling, unlike the usual snowball down the hill that it literally is. But the snow is coming, and starting to be a most-days thing. Something I love is how right now the days have sort of an ethereal light (or gloom) to them due to the angle of the sun, which is SOMEWHERE under all the clouds and snow squalls.  It  creates these subtle glowing moments like this:

I don't know if this picture does it justice.  In the distance there was fog, or snow, and in the sky, the sun (from wherever in the southern sky it was hanging out) lit up the moisture in the sky, turning it very delicately pink...and it GLOWED. Magical, really...you should have been here.

Anyway.

After winter comes Spring which comes LATE, beings that I have seen quite a bit of it still getting underway throughout the month of  June. The Aspens seem to be the last to realize that it has finally arrived, and with little lime green roundnesses of leaves hurry to catch up with the rest of the forest.

No wonder that the weather is always the biggest news item of the day.   Be prepared to talk about it to everyone you meet.  Especially in the grocery store.  Or really just about anywhere else, too. But don't worry, there is always something interesting happening, so you'll have plenty to talk about.

For instance, I like how you can drive ten miles and be in two distinct weather zones. It all has to do with that big LAKE, and your proximity to it.  Yesterday, I drove through squalls and almost clear skies and gloom as well on my 7 mile trip to Ewen and back. It was clear, though, that every type of weather I drove through yesterday was WINTER...and beautiful in its own right.

Hmm....


I guess if everyone had been in my car with me yesterday, looking at the beauty of the snow covering the pines and every branch of every tree and bush, and the inviting trails going off deep into forests, well, then, everyone would want to LIVE here.

Where would we put them all???

Let alone, how would they all fit in my car in the first place?

 I just don't know.

But it would probably wreck the wildness of the place.  Because scenes like this picture

I know it's the same picture.  It's worth looking at at least twice. 

would just get trampled or driven on or people would be brushing up against the trees and knocking the snow off and stuff...not good.

Hmmm....

It's IS really starting to get snowy here.

And it's going to get really way MORE snowy.  Dangerously so.  Hundreds of inches of snow.

 See?

You probably wouldn't like it anyway.

Probably.

Forget I mentioned it.

: )