The closest thing to heaven on this planet that I know
Is a quiet Christmas Morning in the Colorado snow.
I had not heard it before I moved out to Colorado myself, but having headed back home for Christmas this year, I think if you replace "Colorado" with "Minnesota," it is much closer to heaven in my book. Sure, it might be bitterly cold, but there is nothing in my book to compare to Minnesota in the winter.
This particular post is almost a month overdue, as Christmas was almost three weeks ago. But bear with me, and I promise pretty pictures.
As I mentioned above, I headed home to northern Minnesota this year for Christmas. Before I left, my parents mentioned the possibility of me renting skis while I was home. This was one of those moments that hits you upside the head with a "well, why didn't I think of that (for the past 9 years)?" It was a perfect idea. Skiing is a fantastic workout in itself, it would get me outside in different areas where I could not run, and, since my foot had been hurting, it would allow me to incorporate a low-impact workout into my training while I was home. It also solved the problem of running in the snow, which is difficult and sometimes dangerous.
So the day after I got home, we stopped by our local ski shop on the way home from some Christmas errand or other, and picked up some fish-scale classic skies.
For those who don't know, most classic skis use what is called "kick wax" to grip on the snow, which then lifts off of the snow surface for the glide phase of your stride. This requires paying close attention to the temperature, as each individual variety of kick wax only works in about a four to six degree range. Fish-scales, as the name implies, replace kick wax with little shark-scale like protrusions in the area normally covered by kick wax, facing backwards so that they grip when you push back, but glide (ideally) when you are moving forward. The disadvantage is they do not glide very well at all. As I was primarily aiming for a workout, this fact did not bother me unduly.
It was not until Christmas Eve, shortly before the traditional family gathering, that my dad and I got out to ski. We went to Hartley Nature Center, which has about 6k of classic ski trails, with no skating area. After a short time getting used to the motions of skiing again, I took off down the trail.
I had completely forgotten how much I love cross-country skiing. The motions are so much smoother than running that it sometimes feels effortless. That feeling does not last very long, as skiing is actually one of the most difficult full-body workouts around. And yet, since it is such a smooth, gliding motion, I can push myself far harder skiing than I ever can running.
And it was beautiful! The two days before I got back to Minnesota had seen around a foot of new snow, leaving the trees, a mix of evergreen and bare deciduous, covered in a fresh white blanket. There was one particular point in the loop where the light shone just right through the trees.
As I mentioned, pretty pictures.
All told, I think I skied around 30k while I was home, over the course of three different days. I had only rented the skis for four days, and one of those I decided to take off.
Now, to the source of the post title. One of my family's traditions on Christmas is to go out for a walk. In Minnesota, this almost always means a walk in the snow, and it was no different this year. We opted for a rather traditional route: up the Congdon (Tischer) Creek trail from 4th street.
As ever, it was a beautiful walk. My brother forged ahead for a while, stopping occasionally to try and catch me off guard and knock snow off a tree branch on my head. He failed. After walking for a few blocks, and attempting to drop snow on my several times, he stopped out of range of any snowy branch. Cautiously moving forward, I discovered why he had stopped.
This little guy was just off the path. Clearly, woodpeckers do not take Christmas off. If you can see well enough, the dark areas are the remaining outer layer of bark. The red area is where he (and it was a male, as we found out later, though I forget the species) had already been and searched for bugs.
He was an industrious little guy, and all four of us stopped for several minutes and simply watched him do his thing.
This walk is our Christmas tradition. A friend of my brother's, along with his brothers, have a different Christmas tradition: ice bashing. Simply put, they wander around Congdon Creek bashing ice, not worrying too much about falling through. This is a northern Minnesotan activity if there ever was one.
This year, our two traditions happened to overlap, and we ran into the brothers at the apex of our walk. There were the brothers, two of whom where accompanied by their significant others. And we learned, happily, that my brother's friend had proposed to his girlfriend at the Glensheen Mansion three days earlier. A happy coincidence it was that we ran into them that day.
The remainder of the trip was spent alternately resting, reading, relaxing, and reconnecting. With the difficulties I am currently facing searching for a job in a notably poor economic climate, a trip home was precisely what I needed to regroup my faculties.
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