Freezing Minnesota

Kasey and I have just got back from a lovely long weekend in freezing cold St Paul, Minnesota visiting her family and friends. I thought I had experienced some cold nights down the snow in Australia but that was nothing. The moment we walked out of the airport it felt like my jeans had frozen. The temperature hit a low of -14 degrees Fahrenheit (just short of -26 degrees Celsius) while we were there and that doesn't include the windchill which was meant to be as low as -37 degrees Celsius :-)

The picture is of the Minnehaha frozen waterfall right near St Paul. It was amazing but after about 10 minutes out of the car I felt like I was starting to freeze solid.

Minnesota was a 3 hour flight from Boston and we arrived Thursday night. Friday I got a tour of St Paul and some of Kasey's haunts. We then visited the famous Mall of America and had a ride on one of the roller coasters. We spent the evening at drinks with Kasey's friends at a place called the Happy Gnome and they had a lovely witte beer on tap which kept me going until they called last drinks.

Saturday started with some famous Clark dough cakes (not so good for the arteries) but very tasty and moreish (Americans don't seem to know what this means). I did some more touring around St Paul and visited the falls. Saturday evening was Kasey's (somewhat delayed) Xmas celebration and I met more of her family.

Sunday we headed down to Wabasha with Kasey's mum and step dad. They have a unit that is right on the mighty Mississippi river. It was a relaxing 90 minute drive from Boston and we travelled through farmland in Wisconsin. We went out for dinner in Lake City.

Monday we travelled back to St Paul and sorted out the packing before going to lunch with Kasey's dad. We spent the afternoon touring Minneapolis (the twin city to St Paul across the Mississippi) and walked the skyway. We also found a frozen lake for me to walk on and I managed to have a quick chat to a few ice fisherman who were setting up. They estimated the ice was approximately 50cm thick.

We had a good trip back last night and I have had a relaxing day today. There are a few wet flakes of snow falling out the window now. Most of the snow that fell the other week has melted. I will put a few more pictures from the last few days up here.

First run in the snow

Well, it was hard to decide what to run in but I settled on a t-shirt and shorts with gloves and a beanie. It was about -1 degrees Celsius but there was no wind. After about 20 minutes I had warmed up enough to take the gloves off.

I have mapped my route. Very nice run along the Charles river with the snow filled trees. I did have some issues with snow puddles and my lovely new white socks weren't so white by the time I finished :-)

It is snowing!!!

Well, it is definitely snowing now. It started about 3am this morning and everywhere is covered in about 10-15cm of snow. The snow is expected to keep falling into the afternoon. Kasey is working from home today along with most of Boston it seems :-)

I went for a walk this morning with Kasey and Duffy. It isn't too cold but I still had a lot of layers on. It looks amazing.

I have had a good few days. Friday night Kasey and I celebrated our Christmas. We went to this fondue restaurant in Boston (mmm, cheese and chocolate). Saturday we headed to Boston Common and went ice skating at the frog pond. Yesterday we headed to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for the Napoleon exhibit and some lunch with Paulina (one of Kasey's friends). The museum didn't do too much for me but it was a good day.

Kasey and I are heading to Minnesota on Thursday evening where I will get some really cold weather. Supposedly it will be about -20 degrees Celsius.

There are a few more pics here.

First stop Boston

Well, I arrived in Boston without any issues and on time. It was great to see Kasey at the airport and the weather was pretty warm so it wasn't too much of a shock.

I have been taking it pretty easy the last few days. I went for a walk around Brighton and sorted out my mobile phone credit on Tuesday. I also fitted a run in and looked at getting a new seat for Kasey's bike (the last one got stolen since my visit last year). I'm still tossing up how much riding I would be able to do though with the weather (I'm not sure about riding on ice). I visited Kasey's work and had a beer with one of her colleagues (tried the Sam Adam's Winter, bit dark for me but not too bad).

Yesterday was very much a veg out day (think I had a little jet lag). I was planning to head into the city after lunch but felt zonked so had a little nana nap :-)

Kasey has cooked for me the last two nights so I'm going to whip up something tonight (not sure what yet). I am planning to head into the city this afternoon and have a wonder.

One hop in

Hey, well I am now in LA. It was a pretty uneventful flight however the entertainment system did stop working for a few hours and they had to reboot the whole system. I concluded it was based on Microsoft :-) I still managed to get 3 and 3/4 movies in and about hundred pages into my book.

I am using a workstation in the Qantas lounge as they don't provide free wireless access to Qantas members :-( It is currently midday on the 7th in LA and my flight is at 1:30pm so not long to go. Then a short 6 hour hop to Boston where Kasey will be picking me up about 10pm Boston time.

Here I go

Well, after an awesome couple of months and some brilliant farewells I am finally finishing the packing and will be on the plane this afternoon.

The suitcase looks ready to burst but I have got a fair amount of stuff into it. The weather is meant to be pretty warm (tops of 12 degrees Celsius) when I get to Boston so I might be able to ease into winter.