Fine Line Between Robert and Jack

We had a cold snap in these parts the latter portion of last week. By cold snap, I mean overnight temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit; I use Celsius in the summer to help me think cooler, but never in the fall and winter when I'd be colder) and since we hadn't really had a gradual decline in temperatures from the middle fifties where we spend a lot of Autumn to where we ended up it felt like a punch to the gut.

I do not do well in cold weather. I shiver uncontrollably even if I'm not actually cold (though I usually am), which seemed to start back when I was in the USAF and stationed in Greenland in the middle of the Seventies (the decade, not the temperature) and has continued to this day. 

Something else that doesn't do well as the temperatures drop is open water, be it in rivers or lakes and a short walk from our house is the Uncas Leap at Lower Yantic Falls where the decline in temperatures correlates to an increase in icing along the banks of the Yantic and ice formations on the rock walls facing the Lower Falls. 

The ice formations are a thing of beauty at a spot that is already quite beautiful all year-round and that's not just my opinion but also that of the American Planning Association. I'm not native to New England, but I've lived for nearly three decades in a place I never expected to ever be and I never tire of the sight no matter the change of the season. It's another way I remind myself that sometimes it's the journey as much as the destination.

-bill kenny