SNOW

The weather here in Utah is officially the PMS outlet for Mother Nature.  The altitude and latitude we are at allows us to experience all four seasons in their fullness, albeit with a little bit of a twist.  In the spring we have snow and snow and snow, gradually getting warmer, and then BAM, its summer and nice and hot.  Thrown in between are days of wet and marshy grounds and rain and lots of wind that alternate with very hot and dry days and cold and snowy days.  Once summer officially arrives, its hot, hot and hotter (although not humid) till the end of August.  It will begin to cool down in September, with a smattering of very hot and very cold days, although it stays pretty warm.  Then, one day it will decide in October that it really wants to be fall and it gets cold and sometimes snowy.  Come November, the fall/winter weather will fight it out for a few weeks and then it will snow a foot overnight and be winter.  Welcome to Utah...

I love it here, though.  I like being able to experience all of the seasons, but winter is my favorite!  Waking up to 6 in of snow this morning was awesome!  That means that it is time to pull out my skinny jeans and boots and sweaters.  I hear a lot of people complain about the cold, and I hear a lot of people who come to Utah specifically for the world famous snow and all the winter activities.  Personally, I love so much about Winter.  I love the holiday season and the excitement that carries you month to month.  But the best thing really is the snow.  I don't know particularly what about it I love so much, but I can try to explain.

Back in high school, I would get up at 5:30 every morning for swim practice.  In the winter when I would leave, there would be no one else up or around.  The streets were never plowed yet (which was sometimes a pain to drive in) and all was quiet.  At that early hour, the sky was still dark and splattered with stars and light from the moon would glow off the new snow.  Silence was thick and absent in the cold stillness, absorbed by the snowfall that blanketed the earth.  Something about all of that was, and still is, absolutely mesmerizing.