QOTD: Beating the Winter Blues
The weather outside is frightful. That's a nice song lyric, but it's miserable in real life.
Since it's Friday, and since I am tired of the gray depression of a Midwest winter already -- just three or four more months to go! -- I wanted to ask, how do you beat the winter blues? This can be car-related or not.
An example would be that you daydream about driving a convertible on the PCH with the sun shining.
As for me, I try to use "summer" music like Jimmy Buffett to help tide me over until actual summertime. The distractions of the holidays also help -- I deal better with snow and cold during Christmas time than I do during January.
So, how do you get through winter? Also, for those of you in the so-called Smile States, just know that us Northerners hate you right now.
[Image: Bits And Splits/Shutterstock.com]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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This will be my 70th winter living on the North side of Lake Ontario .. Yes It can can get really cold here..The good news... (for us ) ... The north wind send most of the snow across the lake. I'm sure the folks in up state New York can attest to that fact .
The road maintenance people have soaked /covered every square inch of pavement with copious amounts of metal eating concoctions . When spring rains have washed it all down the sewer drain I will then wake up the convertible.
The garage temp hovers around 33-40 F ..Great place to store the beer !
Probert-All Human beings are vastly superior... with the possible exception of a few wiseguy dumb clowns like yourself. Didn;t your mother tell you to stop wasting your time trolling and finish your DAMNED HIGH SCHOOL? You are already 40!
I completely solved the winter blues issue six years ago. I bought winter place in SW Florida and gave two middle fingers to living in the Great (Frozen) State of Maine other than a few months a summer (when the weather isn't as nice as it is in winter in Florida). Was 75F here today on the Gulf Coast, I put the top down on my BMW convertible and took my Mom on a ride to the beach. As a cherry on top, far more reasonable real estate prices and no state income tax.
I will cheerfully deal with the occasional hurricane rather than months and months of cold, snow and dark every year.
BTW, I still have the infamous '11 BMW 328! wagon of Venom Vellum fame - going to be 12 next summer, has 52K on it, lives a summer-only semi-retired life at my place in Maine. I still love it like the day I picked it up in Munich. I drive an '11 128i convertible and a '14 MB E350 wagon in FL.
I live in the Philly burbs. We don’t normally get a lot of snow but cold and rain. Escape each February to the Caribbean for a cruise. This year we’re doing a back to back for a total of 21 days. Its not cheap. About 10K plus airfare and staying a couple of days in FLL.