Tuesday, January 03, 2006

It's not a bad way to spend winter

living here in Phoenix. I'll grant you that hitting 80°F (27°C) as we did today is a trifle unusual for this time of the year (yeah, like I'd know after a mere three years here :) ) but even at it's coldest it ain't a bad way to get through winter. If the temperatures quoted on the Melbourne Herald Sun[^] website were accurate that means that we were warmer here in winter than they were in summer!

To be fair, three weeks ago temperatures were dropping to just below freezing.

I've never lived where it gets truly cold and I like it that way. Snow's great if you have to drive for 3 hours to get to it. But I certainly don't want to have to learn to drive in it! It doesn't bother me all that much that we get 'snowbirds' this time of the year so long as they stay off the freeway when I'm driving to work.

Yep, after all my ranting about how I don't drive on Arizona freeways I've finally had to cave in; the office moved at the end of November and it's an even longer drive. Unfortunately for me, the most obvious non-freeway route takes me down Priest Drive at Guadalupe - a land of four way stop signs, 25 mile per hour speed limits, signs on lamp posts warning of penalties for photographing religious ceremonies and three schools! If you haven't tried to drive past a US school during school time it's an experience to be avoided. Here (I can't speak for the rest of the country) the speed limit is 15 MPH and an easy source of revenue. Many's the motorcycle cop I've seen poised ready to swoop on the unwary motorist.

All of that said though, it's STILL unnatural for January to be the cold time of the year.

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