50 hours below freezing

It seemed like such a good idea in October. My grandma had just died and the invitation for my cousin’s wedding arrived in our mailbox. Emma and I shared the same grandma. I am the only cousin she and her older sister have. Chronologically, my cousins could be my kids…a fun fact that sort of creeps all three of us out. Because of the age and geographical gaps, I’ve never been very close to my cousins. So, in honor of Grandma, I thought maybe I should try to change that.

And that’s how Rob and I ended up freezing our delicate West Coast extremities in Omaha, Nebraska the past two days. The past two days of temperatures that had a minus sign in front of them. The past two days that even the sturdy Midwesterners admitted were stupidly cold.

When we sent in our RSVP card, Rob and I anticipated the wedding would be perhaps the coolest one EVER, it being in Nebraska on New Years Eve. Nevertheless, I was excited to wear a favorite sleeveless party dress with a somewhat plunging neckline and kicky heels.

As the wedding date began to appear in the weather forecasts, my festive wardrobe changed with each update. It was exhausting.

Dresses became skirts became pants. No sleeves became shawls became two layers. Nylons became tights became Cuddl Duds.

I finally packed Option #5 – a pant suit with long underwear, boots, and a turtleneck. Not quite the slinky New Year’s Eve outfit I had originally envisioned but at least I didn’t end up with frostbite. And bonus: I didn’t have to shave my legs and thus had a little extra insulation. Sorry, Rob.

Our prep for the trip was quite impressive. Kohl’s and Fred Meyer were very pleased with our travel plans and hysteria. It seemed every day the week before we left, Rob and I were out in the stores scooping up provisions in a frozen panic. Long underwear, neoprene face masks, gloves, snow boots, wool socks, flannel shirts, dressy sweaters, and fashion booties with enough room to allow for the aforementioned wool socks.

Did I mention we were in Nebraska for a total of 50 hours? Less than one of which was spent outdoors?

Ahhh, transplanted Californians. Aren’t we adorable?

Taken in our kitchen.  Probably the best way to
approach my cooking if not Nebraska winters.

Truth be told, I had actually experienced ridiculously cold weather before. I survived two winters in Butte, Montana when I was a kid where temps got in the negative 30s. I remember being blown around by snow and wind while trying to walk between my mom’s car and the school bus. My school didn’t have windows so as to keep the heat in. We had to change apartments the first winter when the ceiling in my bedroom starting leaking and caving in from the weight of the snow on the roof (who builds flat roofs in Montana?!?). So yeah, that.

But all my cold training ended when I was 8, save for a week-long business trip to Minneapolis in January at my last job. My boss said it was “training at the headquarters.” It was clear by the third day of white-outs and frozen eyelashes that it was really more of a corporate hazing.

Rob’s cold air experience was mostly limited to occasional winter trips to Reno/Lake Tahoe. Honestly, he was freaking out a little more than I was as we watched Emma’s wedding forecast plummet. Nevertheless, both Rob and I were mostly clueless about what we were about to subject ourselves to as we and our two suitcases trekked to the frigid heartland.

As we exited the Omaha airport car rental shuttle, we coughed and gasped at the literally freezing air. We were swaddled in wool and flannel and hi-tech microfibers. Our breath left contrails as we penguined our way to our heavy-duty AWD super big SUV that was unfortunately white. That much harder to find us in a snow drift. Dang it!

As we made our way around parking lots and in and out of buildings, I could sense Rob was a bit disappointed.

“It’s not as cold as I was expecting,” he moped under his fuzzy hat with ear flaps.

“When the wind picks up it will be worse,” I offered hoping to lift his spirits.

Meanwhile, I noticed that all the cars in Nebraska are the same cemety gray color from all the road salt. The cars are filthy and few license plates are readable.

Floors in buildings are also dirty with that same grayish white film. As are the cuffs of most pants, shoes, and purses if you are clueless enough to place them on the floor of a restaurant.

When I apologized to the Hertz guy for all the salty footprints on the floormats in our rental car, he laughed almost as hard as when we told him the car made a scary grinding noise when we started it up both mornings.

“We call that a ‘running start,’” he said as his ski-capped head bobbed backwards with laughter. Although I was sincerely pleased to amuse the Nebraskan with our fish-out-of-frozen-water cluelessness, I knew I had the last laugh with my ticket to balmy Portland-in-the-positive-40s in my hand.

Determined to feel COLD and truly experience the bracing effects of negative digits air, Rob and I adventuresomely (you might have a different adjective) decided to walk to lunch on Sunday. There was a Taco John’s about a quarter-mile from our hotel. It was bright and sunny and the wind seemed manageable and well, we had all that gear from Kohl’s and Sportsman’s Warehouse.

About one-tenth of a mile in, I started to wonder if my foundation could cover frostbite on my cheekbones. I also concluded that Isotoner must be a West Coast brand because my fingers were turning to ice cubes in my new fleecey Thermal Something Or Other totally inadequate gloves. Rob started to question our walking wisdom a few steps later as he realized his nose hair was frozen. By that time, though, we were all in and had Potato Oles (spicy tater tots) in our sights as rewards.

I'm pretty sure the fact we stopped outside
to take a selfie pegged us as out-of-towners.
At least the laughter from one passing motorist
would suggest as much.

I will note here that the entire time we were in Nebraska, I did not see a single person walking outside for leisure or goal-driven step tracking (4,343 for the day!). And I wonder why people kept asking where we were from?

When we arrived at the wedding venue, we were pleased to find parking tucked in the corner of two buildings, protected from the wind. We were preparing to layer up for the 50-foot walk to the door when we observed locals barely throwing coats on and merely walking quickly to the door.

Looking at each other with shrugs, we left two layers in the car as well as my snow boots and we tried to assimilate. Nevertheless, the nice lady tending bar asked us if we were from California.

Perk of being a Youth Group leader:  awesome
cat scarf for Christmas.  It was PURRFECT!
(I had to.  Sorry, not sorry)

The wedding was lovely and I had a great time even if I didn’t get to be slinky. We made it safely back to our hotel in time to watch the people in New York celebrate the arrival of 2018. Having noted our car’s thermometer at -15, we laughed smugly at the revelers “braving” 2 degrees. Two POSITIVE degrees.

Glistening with arrogance, Rob and I then decided it was time for one last adventure. We checked some nearby weather stations. -13 with a wind-chill of -20.

Dressed only in sweatpants, t-shirts, and slippers, we giggled down to the hotel’s lobby. Two employees were at the desk as I got my phone ready to record.

“We don’t live here and we don’t expect to ever be in temperatures this cold again,” I explained. “So we are heading outside to see what it really feels like.”

“You aren’t gonna like it!” the young gal warned through an incredulous smile.

38 seconds later, we were coughing our way back inside. The gal was literally doubled over in laughter as she asked us how it was.

“OH MY GOD! COLD!!!!!” I shivered as we beelined for the elevator.

There’s a good chance she’s still talking about us.

We hung out at my aunt’s house for a couple of hours the next day before heading to the airport. My cousin, who has lived in Nebraska for 22 of her 26 years, answered the door wearing a sun dress and bare feet. She eventually added a sweatshirt as I lounged in my two layers of flannel, fleece-lined jeans, wool socks, and synthetic fur-lined snow boots.

Ready to finally head home to sensible weather, Rob and I got into our rental car to find the water in my half-empty bottle had frozen. In just two hours in the car in the driveway. We interpreted it as another clear sign from Mother Nature that despite our now impressive array of cold weather gear, we shall never visit such silly temperatures again.

God and family willing.