Let’s Keep It On Ice

I’m sure I’ve been telling you how much I hate the cold. Now I learn that by hating the cold I’m not “socially acceptable”.

The “In” place to be these days is the Minus5 Ice Bar in New York. From what I’ve read the entire facility is carved from ice! Every bit including the walls, bar, glasses and even the seats. I guess you don’t have to worry about being on the “hot seat” if you hang at Minus5. I remember sitting in a walk-in freezer to drink a “yard” glass of beer once. I didn’t want the beer to get warm before I finished. Guess that’s not a problem here!

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Now I’ve just heard that you don’t have to go all the way to New York if you live in Massachusetts. Not to be out done Boston has opened the Frost Ice Bar in Faneuil Hall. The Frost Bar keeps the temps at a brisk 21 degrees and for the low, low price of $18.99 per person you can enjoy the frosty ambiance. Drinks not included but they will give you a cape. 🙂

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As if that wasn’t enough to keep Jack Frost happy there are several Ice Hotels. The closest one to the US is in located in our friendly neighbor  to the north, Canada. The Hotel de Glace in Quebec City, Quebec is made of 500 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow and unlike Minus5 and the Frost Bar, this icy structure only lasts until it warms up. Once the temps start to rise the building melts away.

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But before it turns into a puddle it could be an interesting place to stay. The hotel has about 3 dozen rooms, a Nordic area with tubs and sauna, an ice bar and a grand ice slide. Room temperatures range from 23 degrees to a balmy 27.  But don’t worry about staying warm. Each guest is provided with a sleeping bag. The hotel is open from January to Mid-March depending, of course, upon the weather.

More ice hotels can be found in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Romania. I think I see a trend here.

Week 1 Winner

Since I decided to try one of the 365 photo challenges again mother nature is trying her hardest to throw a monkey-wrench into things. It’s been record cold and we had a 2 day blizzard. Not the kind of weather to inspire me to go out looking for pictures. Instead I’m inside taking down the tree and other decorations so the house has boxes piled like I was getting ready to move. Certainly not photo ready. And how many pictures of my cats can I take!?

Anyway, I made it through week 1. I am very lucky it was a short week. 🙂 This week isn’t looking much better but I’ll persevere. In the meantime here’s the results of the first week. It was very close but I have to go with the New Year picture.

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It beat out Rocky’s picture  by just a hair but it’s kind of appropriate for the first week of a new year. Rocky will get other chances. There’s 360 more days to go!

Those Were The Days

Didn’t I just say that I hate the cold? I don’t hate the snow. It’s pretty and if it could be warm I might actually like it. It seems to me as a kid I liked it. I remember snowball fights and snowmen and snow forts. I loved “tracking” little animal prints through the white stuff and even learned to snow shoe.

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Remember the “Flying saucers?”.

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They were round aluminum disks that we sat on to go twirling down the hills when we weren’t racing on the toboggans, I remember the flexible flyer too. We’d hold it up as we ran like crazy only to throw ourselves on it while we were still in the air, kind of like a belly flop except we wanted to do this to get the sled moving faster.

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Remember the ice crusts? We’d use plane old cardboard boxes to go sliding then. Just don’t fall face first as that crust could slice and dice. I made many trips home bloodied up.

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I even went horseback riding in the snow when I could sneak out. That was a big no-no when it should have been a yes-yes to keep the horse from getting too frisky. 🙂 A fine example of 20-20 hindsight. But my point is that I didn’t always hate the cold and snow.

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I hate it now because it hurts. It makes my joints ache, especially my hips, knees and ankles. Today we can add in my right shoulder, maybe from shoveling? I wish it didn’t affect me that way.

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I see these wonderful nature programs on PBS, polar bears, elk, caribou and other northern snow-loving animals.

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I want to photograph these animals in the wild, not at the zoo. I want a picture of a deer standing in a field of snow for one of my Christmas Cards.

White-tailed deer buck in Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

There’s a place, a sanctuary, where I could photograph wolves but the best time to go is, you guessed it, in the winter.

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Right here in Massachusetts we have wintering grounds for snowy owls. The best known one is Duxbury Beach, a six mile long barrier beach. Snowy owls that try to settle at Logan Airport are trapped and moved to this stretch of sand to rest before they continue on their southern migration.

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Photographing the “Snowies”  is a common winter pastime for bird photographers and birders hold walks to look for them along the beach, but let me tell you, that wind off the water is cold. I’ve driven over to that beach only to chicken out once the wind hit me. I guess I’ll never make a serious nature photographer…more like a fair weather one.

So until I figure out how to keep warm out there, I’ll stand by my “I hate the cold” comment.

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 42,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.