Iʻd like to take this opportunity to share a story.
If you would have driven by the side of White Mountain Rd in Show Low, AZ (round about the Thai place that used to be *so* much better than it was that particular day) at the exact right day and time during the month of March in the year 2008, you might have seen three adorable and brilliant (although not always perfectly behaved) blond children playing in the dirty snow on the side of the road. You might wonder why any parent would let her child play in dirty snow on the side of the road. I can explain.
See, we donʻt seem to get much (any) snowfall around our immediate domicile. In fact, my children are in awe right now when watching the winter olympics (what are they spinning on? ice? thatʻs ice? people dance around on ice? Where do they get the ice? From the freezer? -- ok, that last question wasnʻt really asked. Remember, I said my children were brilliant).
Yes, we do have a mountain with snow on top sometimes, but visiting involves a super long drive that makes someone (ok, me) really carsick, and itʻs hard to find the time to get there and blah blah blah... So when we took our big trip to the mainland over Spring Break in 2008, we visited a bunch of places mommy and daddy used to live. (Now Iʻm talking in the third person, sorry. The mommy in this story is me.)
So imagine our utter delight when we drove through Albuquerque shortly after landing like 10 hours late and almost crashing to our deaths (but thatʻs another story) and saw snow! We had worn our warmest clothing (sweatshirts, socks, jeans and real shoes!) and we were having a great time running around in the tiny flurries. By the time we got to Arizona (after our stint in Gallup visiting family), we were overjoyed to discover there was actually one little pile of old dirty snow on the ground. So of course, I had to let them play! However, I decided, wisely I think, to save teaching them the joy of eating snow for another visit and perhaps a cleaner snow pile.
Now that I read it over, that was a really dumb story. Sorry. I felt compelled to share anyway. Sometimes you just want to belong....
(we got a little flurry of snow when were in Chicagoland during that trip too! Iʻm thinking we probably wonʻt get a snowfall this summer when we visit...)