Saskatchewan winters bring dreams of far off destinations, sunny beaches and exotic food and beverages. I know many people from the community who have been away lately or are anxiously counting down to the day printed on their airline voucher.
I know about many of the trips thanks to online social networking sites where friends and relatives post photos almost instantly, letting the world know where the dolphins are jumping, where the scenery is completely different from home and where the meals are worthy of a magazine quality photograph.
I don't plan to leave the prairies this winter. I've spent the last two weeks crisscrossing the province to attend family functions and celebrate the holidays. We even took a mini-vacation to see a travelling museum exhibit in our provincial capital.
We stayed in hotels, spent time in our bathing suits, ate delicious, if not exotic, food and felt the bright sunlight on our faces through the car windows as we travelled down clear highways, all without having to go through the hassle of renewing our passports.
It doesn't feel like winter has really begun. We have driven through and stayed awhile in communities where there is enough snow on the ground to give the impression it was December or January, but warmer than seasonal temperatures and barely more than a skiff of snow at home makes it feel more like early fall.
There are years when the snow is piled high around Halloween and I seem to survive only by visualizing a vacation in January of February. It's less than a month until Groundhog Day, the time of year when I feel the end of winter is near and I don't feel I need to go away.
I'd like to take a little vacation or maybe hibernation to recover from the Christmas holidays, but it would be more about sleeping than spending time waiting for airplanes, sightseeing and swimming in the ocean.
As we've travelled, we've picked up the tab on our credit cards, memories to treasure and at least a few nasty germs. I really am enjoying the warmer weather, but I think the microbes that make seasonal bugs hang on like it, too.
I wouldn't mind a cold snap to clear the air and I'm sure my snowboarding and skiing friends would be happy if we got a bit of the white stuff, but right now my mind doesn't have to wander to palm trees. This winter looks pretty good, right here.
