Dec 16, 2007

The big lake they call Gitche Gumee

After two days of waiting, I did finally get my driveway plowed. The plow guy showed up around 8:30 Thursday night which was about 12 hours before I was set to leave for a weekend trip to city with even more snow!

Traveling by car, Duluth Minnesota is about 6 hours away from Janesville Wisconsin. Temperature-wise it was about 15 degrees colder, which translates into a 2.5 degree deficit for every hour traveled.

Duluth is on Lake Superior (the largest & coldest freshwater lake in the world) which means the city is a regular recipient of "lake effect" winds--in this case, very cold lake effect winds! That said, I suppose it makes sense that the citizens of Duluth seem to take their winter outerwear very seriously. I got the impression that the expensive Patagonia, The North Face and Columbia brand jackets I saw most everyone wearing were purchased to ensure the survival of the wearers, rather than to make any kind of "fashion" statement.

I know layering clothing is key to staying warm, although I'm pretty sure I could have put on every piece of clothing in my suitcase at the same time without achieving a true state of warmth. I shouldn't complain though, I was able to avoid frostbite and/or hypothermia by wearing a fleece jacket under a down jacket... on top of a short sleeve shirt and a long sleeve shirt of course.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Were you able to make it into your driveway again when you got home?

Donna said...

I almost didn't. In addition to the snow, the city plows had pushed about five giant ice chunks into the approach. Once I got those out of the way it wasn't too bad.

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! Did you put math in your blog?!