That's what Belinda Jensen, the meteorologist on the Twin Cities' NBC station, just said. Damn right, Bel!
As Shannon has already said tonight, a massive snowstorm has shut down the entire state of Minnesota. A few minutes of Googling shows that schools are closed in the region outlined by Fargo, North Dakota, in the northwest to Ames, Iowa, in the south, and Duluth, Minnesota, in the northeast. I can only imagine the elation of kids all over the state.
Our townhouse is socked in, with a three-foot drift blocking the front entry and a mountain of snow on the patio. I left work at three just to be sure that I would make it home okay, which was smart because the roads were so bad, and the snow was so heavy, that the Minnesota Department of Transportation pulled its plows off the roads.
After the girls went to bed, I ventured outside to ski a few laps of the backyard. The Carleton weather station said that it was about 22 degrees F. , with 30mph gusts bringing the windchill around 10, but honestly, it was wonderful to be out there. My headlamp and the streetlights and house lights created an all-encompassing silvery-white shine that was as beautiful in its own wintry way as the flat yellow afternoon glare in San Francisco or the suffusing pink glow of a sunrise on the North Shore - my standards for notably beautiful light. Of course, I wiped out a few times (really, just falling on my face after putting one ski down on the other), but what better way to experience a blizzard than with a snout full of snow?