Snow

How cold does it have to be before you can't tell the difference between hot and cold water? Before seeing your breath mist up becomes a usual scene? Before leaving any liquid in your car = ice cubes in the afternoon? Yes people this is the miracle of snow.

It was Christmas day when we left our cosy Danville house for a 4 hour ride up north for Lake Tahoe. We stopped by in several pit stops along the way and it really amazed me that our gas would deplete so quickly. You see we were traveling on the expressway American style. 8 lanes for one direction, not much traffic, no cramming into tight spots just you and the open road. With that factor given how can you not keep a steady 70 miles (not km) / hour rate? In exchange for that feeling of freedom and speed we depleted our gas resources quickly and had to gas up quite a few times.

One interesting place that we stopped by is this gas station where I found a Barack Obama key chain. The cashier man was quite friendly and when I went to purchase my newly found treasure we talked. It was quite sad when he mentioned that he had no problem working on Christmas day because his family lives somewhere else and he's been alone for sometime already. Christmas day was any other day for this poor soul. That just tore me apart and I felt sad for him that he had nothing to look forward to at the end of the year except for freezing weather and another month's bonus. But it isn't any of my business so I didn't say anything anymore. After stocking up on provisions and restroom breaks we headed out for Lake Tahoe.

I must confess that most of the time in the car I had my headphones on and my iPod playing movies, so I did not pay much attention to the scenery outside, even though it was pitch dark. But later in the night my cousin who was driving did shout out my name and exclaimed "It's snowing!" And indeed it was, with snow flakes slowly drifting down like white insects descending from the night sky. I stood in amazement as I saw this natural precipitation float down for the first time in my life.

In the following days that we stayed in our log cabin and went snowboarding I learned a lot of things about snow. It could melt and refreeze to ice and hardens. It doesn't taste that very good. You can jump into it and come out all white. Basically snow was fun. And very coooooold.