The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar,
that tomorrow…there’ll be sun.
And Cold!
Tag Archives: cold
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!
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. 🙂
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.
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. Â 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.
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.
Remember the “Flying saucers?”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I see these wonderful nature programs on PBS, polar bears, elk, caribou and other northern snow-loving animals.
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.
There’s a place, a sanctuary, where I could photograph wolves but the best time to go is, you guessed it, in the winter.
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.
Photographing the “Snowies” Â 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.
I said Welcome 2014
I guess we didn’t give 2014 enough of a welcome Jan 1. It rolled in with a vengeance. Â Almost immediately 2014 started dumping snow and cold on New England. The blizzard started quietly enough early Jan 2 but gained momentum as the day progressed really picking up steam over night.
There were reports of empty shelves at supermarkets as everyone raced to the stores to stock up on essentials, bread, milk, eggs, meat…funny the snack aisle was pretty hard hit too!
The Governor was on the news urging employers to send people home and close early. Schools were closed while kids rejoiced. 🙂
My boss encouraged everyone to work remotely from home and agents with tours were encouraged to reschedule. The message was clear! Stay off the  road. Stay safe.
The speed limit on the Mass. Pike was reduced to 40 miles per hour. And the road crews only promised to try to keep one lane open overnight. Forecasters are saying white out conditions! Doesn’t sound like fun driving conditions.
At least the snow is dry and fluffy. Sorry, not good for snowmen and snowball fights but easy to clear…and there’s another storm on the way for Sunday/Monday!
Did I mention that I hate the cold?
SNOW PASSAGE
This post is out of order. I should have shared it before the Juneau post as it is about our sea time getting to Juneau but better late than never. I hope you enjoy it.
Ketchikan to Juneau            272 Nautical Miles      speed 17.2 Knots
Once we left Ketchikan we set  sail to reach Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Overnight we’ll sail through Frederick Sound, then transit Stephen’s Passage finally sailing north through Gastineau Channel into Juneau.
In the afternoon we attended another presentation by the Naturalist, this time about the Gold Rush years in Alaska. It was ok, something to do, if you will. Most of what he presented was taken straight from the internet including his slide show of vintage photos. What he did say that got my attention was that as we leave Ketchikan we’ll approach Snow Passage. Estimated time of arrival is 6:45 pm. According to him we will see whales and he said he would be there to narrate.
At 6:30pm bundled up against the cold, rainy weather, Sandy and I arrived on the top deck with binoculars and camera in hand.
It wasn’t long before one of the other guests spotted a pod of “something”. They moved fast and were only visible for a moment each time they leapt through the waves. Clearly not whales , they were some kind of porpoise. They were much smaller than dolphins but they were not intimidated by the ship, coming right along the port side. No chance for photos, but exciting just the same.
Then it was back to our cold vigil watching for spouts. It took about 15 minutes but we spotted one. We followed the periodic “blows” from the bow to the stern as the whale moved south to our north. We never got a good look at the animal but we were pretty sure it was a humpback. We hung out for another 15 – 20 minutes but didn’t see anything more. The naturalist never arrived either.  (I guess somebody didn’t get the memo.) I just knew if we left the whales would show up but it was cold and we didn’t want to miss dinner so we wrapped up our “whale watch” heading back inside to warm up.
Dinner lasted until about 9:30. We skipped the show and chose a quiet after dinner drink at the Crooner’s Lounge where  Dan Hodge, Piano Entertainer, sang classic tunes filling in the history and obscure facts between songs. It was low-key, relaxing and fun. Situated right above the atrium we could people watch 3 decks along with the glass elevators.
It was still pretty light out.
Sunset was getting later and later the farther north we traveled but we had an early morning excursion in Juneau so reluctantly we decided to turn in.
