I awoke yesterday morning here in Denver to the the scene in the photograph on the left - a veritable Winter Wonderland - and if you are a regular Blog Reader, you know how I feel about Winter Wonderlands. Before I went to bed the night before, it was snowing like hell outside, and if it kept up like that, I knew I wouldn't be going anywhere Saturday morning. The weather bunnies had predicted 7 inches of snow and a high of seven degrees for Saturday. As it turns out, they were completely wrong - it only got up to 3 degrees for the high and we actually had 7.7 inches of snow. Fire them all, I say.
In any case, since the snow didn't close down the city, I had to get to the bookstore where I am the bookkeeper by 9:00 A.M. for my final 4 hour floor shift (all employees must work 16 hours on the sales floor during the Christmas rush to help out the cause). When I arrived (five minutes late, but what the heck - the roads were snow-covered, after all), I was happy to see I was scheduled to work the cash register instead of the sales floor. No taking phone orders for 2,000 children's books, some on hand and some to be ordered - and then shipped to God knows where by Christmas - at least for today. As you can imagine, it was not too busy in the morning, and the crowds did not begin to appear until once the roads were cleared, happily after my floor shift had ended. After working a few more hours on bookkeeping related duties, I drove home past Washington Park and decided to take some Winter Wonderland style photographs, like the one on the right.
As I spent a few minutes in the balmy 3 degree temperatures, taking photographs, I noticed the idyllic setting in the photograph on the left. A truly wonderful spot to sit and enjoy the winter season, if it wasn't near sunset and the temperature was soon to head below zero. And for all you record freaks out there, the high temperature of 3 degrees Fahrenheit (and God knows what Celsius) was a record for Denver, and last night it got down to a record low of 15 below zero. And as we like to say in Denver, the climate here is very dry, and so although it might be 15 degrees below zero outside, it only feels like zero. Time to put on that bikini and head for the pool.
By the time I got home, the sun was setting, at which time I took (for probably the 10,000th time in the past 16 years I have been living in this place) the photograph on the right. And of course I now feel obligated to mention that it was only 4:45 P.M.on a Saturday afternoon, and it was already getting dark out. And also - as I have rhetorically asked on this Blog many times - how do the people of Iceland stand this for probably half the year? Why don't they all just throw themselves into the nearest active volcano, which as I understand it is just on the outskirts of downtown Reykjavik? By then it was 5:00 P.M. and totally dark out on a Saturday night. And then it hit me. The Answer! Happy Hour! I suddenly realized it was happy hour at Spanky's Urban Roadhouse until 6:00. I immediately headed over there, had a few pints, and joined in a lively conversation about the weather. But only a few pints. Even though I was walking, and especially so, you do not want to be wandering aimlessly outside when the temperature is minus 15. Just another helpful tip on this public service Blog.
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