I Can See Siberia From My House!

It’s almost April.

How have I managed to stumble through a blizzard?!

 I swear these kind of things only happen to me, but I guess that’s what happens when you are the adventuress sort who decides to go for a hike in a blizzard after dinner.

To be fair it was the last week in March, and yes it had been softly snowing all evening outside the house as we were warm inside by the fire and I was wrapped up in my heat blanket with an addicting book I hadn’t been able to tear my face out of for two days, kitty cat sleeping in my lap, old lady dog passed out farting contently by my side.

After a delicious cabbage and cashew stir fry dinner I had an urge to spread my wings and leave my cozy warm position on the couch.

Or maybe I just needed some fresh air.

Anyways, Merrill hiking boots were soon laced up, leg warmers pulled up over my leggings, jacket buttoned, hat covered my head and scarf wrapped around my throat just in case it was really cold. How cold could it really be? It was past Easter weekend, our apple and plum trees were already budding and Big Bear was speckled with buttercup daffodils. It wasn’t going to be that cold. I was definitely being overly cautious as I pulled on my lightest pair of mittens and dressed the little doggy in her favorite sweater.

And than we walked out the front door into a blizzard.

Of course it didn’t seem that way at first. We wandered the streets of the neighborhood, little doggy on the leash for once and very insulted by it as we approached the tall trees of the forest.

“Fine! Go! Be free you monster!!” I shouted, releasing her from the confines of the leash and watching her make a mad dash through the snow, chasing a bewildered bunny and running as fast as she could through the pines. ( First bunny of the year! It must be spring!)

At this point the hike was still fun. We were not quite to Russia yet.

Last week my boyfriend and I discovered a new area to mountain bike where we can make a loop through a dry lake bed and continue back to our house. I thought it was about four miles round trip. I was thinking the lake bed would be gorgeous on this snowy morning.

As we approached the lake bed I felt great. Our neighborhood was such a gorgeous sight on the snowy evening. It was now snowing hard, giant pretty flakes had coated myself and the pup but I didn’t care, it was just so gorgeous that evening. We continued out into the dry lake bed and then it got cold.

I mean, really fucking cold. I felt like we must be in a very arctic like place, Nome Alaska perhaps? We were suddenly in white out blizzard conditions as we walked quickly across the lake. Every once in a while I would shriek out Carly’s name, realizing I was to concerned about my cheeks being on fire and sudden frost bite and I hadn’t seen her in a good five minutes. Dying of frost bite would be bad, losing the pup in a blizzard would be worse.

Good thing she seemed to know where I was and happily ran back to me each time I called, appearing like a tan blur out of the whiteness of the huge falling flakes. I felt like we had been traversing across this lake bed forever and I knw the way! I felt for sure we were still heading north but I was feeling discombobulated as all I could see was white, white snow on both sides and my face was burning, the only area uncovered. I tried to wrap my scarf around my face but it was hard and frozen at this point and did nothing to keep out the frozen wind. It had been twenty degrees when we left the house and felt way colder then that now with the wind chill.

 How were we not back to the main road yet? I honestly felt like we had time warped into Siberia and we would never make it back to the paved streets and log houses of our neighborhood! Carly, on the other hand was having the time of her life as she raced happily through the snowy meadow. That dog just loves the snow!

As my cheeks burned and I wondered just where the hell we were and if we were almost to Stalingrad yet I finally, saw the massive hill we had mountain biked up the other day and realized we had made it to the shores of the lake. I have never been so happy to hear traffic on the highway before.

The middle of the hike may have turned a bit spooky and I may have wondered if I would get frost bite for a bit but it was a glorious night for a hike in a blizzard. As we finally neared our home, three miles later we were rewarded with this amazing sunset. How was the sunset so pink in the middle of a blizzard?