This weekend was typical of the end of autumn here — gray, somewhat cold, with a chance of a rain/snow mix. To avoid the onset of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), I pretty much have to force myself outdoors, so on Saturday I went to an orienteering meet hosted by the local club.
Without going into a ton of detail, orienteering is using a map and compass to navigate within a large area (park, forest, preserve) to find set flags. Kind of the early form of geocaching, but it’s a race.
Anyway, it’s great physical and mental exercise, which really does the trick for me in not turning into a winter shut-in. Especially the running part.
So what do you guys do in the winter to fight the blahs? Answer below in the form of song!
I love to go outside in the cold, play in the snow on my snowboard, & come back in & get warm with someone special…
I’m also not opposed to a good snowball fight or snowman building…
My winter activities are pretty much the same as the rest of the year. At least lately. It’s too hot in the summer to spend much time outside. We don’t get a lot of snow are sun zero weather so I get to spend more time in the park, woods, and on the patio during the day now than during the summer months. And Fanny is so demanding, she doesn’t care if it’s icy, freezing, or wet, she wants a long walk every day. She draws the line at storms thank goodness. She’s better than a treadmill and cheaper than a gym membership.
Rufus Thomas- Walking the Dog
Gotta start proof reading before I hit post.
* we don’t get a lot of snow here or sub zero weather *
Yep-yep. Another thing I do is throw on a loaded backpack and walk our younger dog for several miles. We call it “Ruck with Huck”.
I spend my time Keeping Warm
The best way to cope with winter:
Barry White & Love Unlimited – It May Be Winter Outside
i actually like all the dark and cold
i mean that may be a disorder of its own….but i dont get the sads
summer hurts me more
but is much better for people watching
that said….its currently -8c
which is cold enough to freeze all the stuff i left outside coz fuckit…nature provides a natural fridge
….could you settle on a nice -4 ish maybe nature?
thats just right for outdoor fridging
It took me a long time, but eventually I looked at a globe and realize how far north so much of Europe is. As in, you guys are above most of the US, at the level of Quebec and Newfoundland.
One of my favorite pieces of geo-trivia is that Rome is basically at the same latitude as Boston, and that Naples (Italy) is slightly farther north than New York.
Right! Paris is basically Montreal. London is basically at the lower point of Hudson Bay. I don’t even want to think what Dublin or Oslo are like in December.
What saves them is Europe is warmly caressed by the Jet Stream. For example, snow is very, very rare in Paris and a friend of mine was once in Paris when they got an inch or something. No one except ski-aficionados had footwear to deal with this, the women especially, so they be tripping and sliding in their chic heels and fashionable-but-not-practical leather boots.
I just looked this up: in the last 20 years it has only snowed seven times in Rome and it sounds like it barely sticks. What they do have, I know this first-hand, are cold, rainy, gloomy days, otherwise known as “summer in Scotland.”
Yep. Iceland, of all places, has milder winters than most of Canada, despite butting up against the Arctic Circle. The North Atlantic Current carries warm water from the equator up to the island’s southern shore.
as mathew and meme pointed out…we actually have a fairly mild climate here thanks to all the sea around….need to be further inland for the proper cold (or heat in summer)
that said….-8 with 90% humidity and windchill…is not the most pleasant cold to be out in
Tim (Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job) Heidecker and Davin Wood — Cross Country Skiing
Will be doing some classic XC skiing and snowshoeing this upcoming weekend. Really looking forward to it.