Let's Talk About the Weather!

 

I live in Colorado.  A transplant of nearly 60 years from the high windy plateaus of south-central Wyoming where I was born and raised.  

Wyoming was a great place to grow up.  I didn't know any different, except for the places we went on vacation which sometimes seemed nicer than where we lived, but there was always blue sky and sunshine for most of the year in my neck of the woods.  BLUE SKY AND SUNSHINE!  My biggest faves.  However, there was also a constant wind blowing, little semblance of four seasons (we always said there were really only two seasons), and not a lot of trees.  That isn't what a lot of what other people in the world think of as "inviting".

When I moved to Colorado after I graduated from Brigham Young University, I thought I had come to live in Paradise.  Sure, there is sometimes a freak snowstorm in the early fall or late spring, but for the most part the weather is pretty acceptable.  The snow doesn't last forever.  It usually melts within a day or so.  Plus, there are always plenty of days that reach into the 60's even during the winter months.  And yes, sometimes the wind blows.  But not usually so fierce or chilling as our neighboring state to the north.  No humidity.  No unbearable heat.  No extreme phenomena like earthquakes or tornados.  (Okay, that freakish kind of event has happened now and then, but those are the exceptions, not the rule for regular, every-day life in Colorado.)

April showers bring May flowers is what the familiar verse says.    Not always in Colorado though.  Some years the showers turn out to be a snowstorm that either freezes the buds that managed to pop up their heads or delays them for a few more weeks. Just wait--that riot of blossoms will come....

Luckily, there is a common phrase to cover any disappointment about an unexpected rainstorm or cloudy sky that pops up on the horizon:  "If you don't like the weather, wait a while.  It will change."  And it usually does.

However, after some warm days recently that turned unexpectedly windy and bone-chilling, my daughter sent this little reminder to me about the "seasons" we experience in this beautiful area of the Rocky Mountain West.  I laughed out loud!  Just about sums up the whole topic of this discussion.  

I think it is a pretty fair commentary about the subject of weather as we experience it in Colorado.  Yet after calling Colorado home for nearly six decades--including four temporary short-term residences in Europe and on the East Coast--I'm STILL satisfied with my choice!