After a few housebound weeks in Illinois’ sub-freezing winter weather, a thirty-six degree day felt positively balmy. Although the weatherman called for yet another dreary, overcast day, no snow or freezing rain was forecast, so I seized the opportunity to visit the Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre park in the Chicago’s western suburbs.

Walking along the shores of a frozen lake at the Morton Arboretum

The Arboretum was established in 1922 by Joy Morton, who is best known as founder of the Morton Salt Company. Although Morton’s head was in the salt business, thanks to his father, J. Sterling Morton, who founded Arbor Day and served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland, the younger Morton’s heart belonged to trees. “Plant Trees” was the Morton’s family motto. And plant they did, over many years creating a horticultural showcase on their private estate. At the age of 65, Morton began developing the property into an Arboretum, with the mission to “collect and study trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world, to display them across naturally beautiful landscapes for people to study and enjoy, and to learn how to grow them in ways that enhance our environment.” Read the rest of this entry »

I am on my annual pilgrimage to the Chicago area to visit family over the holidays. The day after I arrived, freezing rain coated everything with ice, creating dangerously slick driving conditions. The following day, more freezing rain was followed by eight inches of snow. Since then, it has snowed almost every day and the temperature has barely climbed above ten degrees. Although I don’t venture out much in this kind of weather, I managed to brave the horrid conditions one rare sunny day to take photos. Frost and ice had coated the naked tree trunks and tall grasses, transforming barren forests into a fairyland. Despite my double-lined winter coat, knit cap, hood, boots and gloves, I just about froze to death. I swear the metal earpieces of my glasses froze to my cheekbones.

Winter fog coats the trees and obscures a country road

Beautiful ice-and frost-coated trees

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for enduring the elements until happening upon these teens jumping around on the rocks at the edge of the Illinois River, wearing only lightweight jackets, and I began to question whether I really was Read the rest of this entry »

The Kankakee River ice jam is no more. Two days ago the temperature in Illinois soared to a record breaking 60 degrees; this on the heels of weeks of sub-zero temperatures that had frozen the river solid. As  the thermometer climbed, the ice began to melt and crack, piling up in giant slabs that backed up the water and caused flooding upstream. Ice collected in a mountainous heap in front of Dad’s house and by midday the rising water began to push ice onto shore, in the process taking out everything in its path. At 8 p.m., Dad checked the water level and discovered it was over the dock and was rising fast. We held our breaths and prepared to leave if necessary, but by 10 p.m. the water was receding. Dad speculated that the locks downstream had been opened up to relieve the flooding.

Backed up ice pushes into the cove, creating a mini-glacier

By yesterday morning, all the ice on the far side of the island had been swept downstream and the river was again flowing, but the cove in front of Dad’s house still looked like a glacier, with jagged ice stretching from the shore to the island. Soon, the swift currents on the far side of the island began eating away at the ice in the cove. Before long, half the distance between Dad’s dock and the island had opened up. I pulled on boots, bundled up in two coats to keep warm in temperatures that were once again down to freezing, and grabbed my camera. At the shoreline, huge sheets of ice split and fell into the river, crashing into one another like a giant demolition derby. Further out, mini icebergs calved from larger mounds and floated away. The air was filled with crackling and popping that reminded me of Read the rest of this entry »

Unless this crazy weather pattern stops, I’m afraid my family is going to run me out of town on a rail for fear that I am a jinx. To begin with, this has been Illinois’ coldest December in many years. The Kankakee River, which runs right by my Dad’s front door, NEVER freezes before January. But the recent long string of sub-zero days caused the river to freeze over in mid-December this year.

Yesterday morning, with the temperatures still below freezing, I watched a three wheeler zipping down the ice out in the middle of the river. Later that afternoon the temperatures started to climb and kept climbing. By noon today, it was 60 degrees outside and the ice was rapidly melting. Not long afterward, from his spot in front of the picture window overlooking the river, Dad said, “Here it comes. The ice is breaking up.” I rushed over to see. Looking across the glassy surface, I spotted a narrow band of broken up ice slowly floating past the island that marks the midpoint of the river.

Grabbing the camera, I ran outside and looked upstream. The ice moved slowly at first, crackling and popping as sheets split apart. Expanses of water opened up, releasing pent up flood waters that had backed up behind the ice floe. Raging waters and 40 mph buffeting winds forced ice chunks to tumble on top of one another and build up into jagged mountains. Giant tree branches and tree trunks protruded from the floe as it raced downstream, threatening the houses across the river that are at a lower elevation.

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The high temperature today in Illinois was MINUS one degree. This followed a night of sub-zero temps with wind gusts up to 35 mph. All night long, high winds roared across the frozen river outside my father’s house, tearing ice off the trees in the yard. Every so often the sound of ice shards spattering against the windows was accompanied by the CRACK of an ice-laden tree limb breaking off a tree, quickly followed by a BOOM as the limb fell on the roof or hit the side of the house.

Although the photo doesn't do it justice, absolutely everything - every little tree branch as well as the road surface - is covered in a thick sheet of ice. You get just a hint of how bad it is from the branches at the far left, where the ice is sparkling from the meagre sunlight filtering through the forest.

I had planned to go to Bingo and Christmas shopping with my sisters today, but when I watched the weather report, I thought better of it and called Nancy to cancel.

“Don’t be such a wuss! It’s just a little bit of cold,” she challenged.

“I hate this weather,” I said. “I don’t need to end up sick.”

“You don’t get sick from the cold. You get sick from a bug.” I am aware of this. I used this argument many times as a child, when my parents insisted Read the rest of this entry »

There is beauty in everything and last night’s ice storm was no exception. I braved the cold temperatures, slippery roads, and tree limbs crashing down all around me to capture these photos:

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Snow on the Outer Banks of North Carolina? Not a regular occurrence, but it’s been known to happen.

Three inches of snow in one day in Las Vegas, where they normally don’t get more than a half inch during an entire winter? Now that’s a bit strange.

But when I heard it snowed in Malibu yesterday – well, that’s just downright weird.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the worst of it. This morning, my father poked his head into the living room to give me a heads up. “Don’t worry if you hear some noise. I’m just testing the generator.”

“Yeah, OK,” I replied distractedly. I was busy writing a travel article that was overdue and didn’t really pay too much attention. Even hearing the generator roar to life didn’t make much of an impression.

Several hours later I noticed a strong chemical odor in the house that reminded me of cleaning solvent or paint thinner. When the fumes had permeated the living room Read the rest of this entry »

I must have been able to stand cold weather at some point in my life, because I have memories of shoveling snow as a child in Chicago and of digging out cars stuck in snowdrifts during the winters of 1978 and ’79. Perhaps it was all the years of living in Phoenix and the Caribbean that made me less tolerant to cold. All I know is that when the temperatures drop below 50 I am miserable. I had an amazing month-long leaf-peeping trip to parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Georgia, but toward the end I really started to suffer as autumn kicked in, and I was anxious to get back to Florida where I could warm my bones.

The drive home from Atlanta yesterday was not without drama. Near Valdosta, Georgia, I pulled off the Interstate for fuel. I pulled into a Race Trac gas station that was advertising the lowest price, slid my debit card through the reader and waited for the pump to turn on. When the nozzle didn’t activate I checked the display. To my horror it read, “Declined – see attendant – error Z.” Now, I know my debit card is good. There’s plenty of money in my account. But my first reaction was embarrassment, that somehow I would be seen as a thief or a deadbeat. So of course, I tried again. No way. Declined. I seriously thought about trying a third time, until I realized that would be the definition of insanity – repeating the same behavior over and over and Read the rest of this entry »