If my vacation is miserable enough, life seems easier.

Just kidding.  Sorta.
When I was a kid I cursed my parents for living in stupid boring frozen Minnesota.  When I grew up I was leaving.  Then I grew up and found that I love it here.  Winter is awesome because it makes me awesome.  We’ve gone on two winter camping trips and are planning our third for mid January 2015.   We’re not that crazy.  I’ve got six good reasons that make it worth while.

1) No Bugs!
Seriously winter kills all the icky things.  Without swatting and itching I can really notice how nice it is.

2) Beautiful.
Didn’t you see Frozen?  The world becomes your crystal palace.  At first it can seem just stark in white, blue, gray and brown.   Stay out long enough and you see it glitters and glows and has purples and golds like no other time of year.  

3) Peaceful.
It’s so quiet.  Not just because the water isn’t moving, and the leaves aren’t rustling, and the bugs aren’t buzzing.  There are so few people!  In the winter you don’t have the yokels loudly making fools of themselves the next campsite over.

4) Yummy.
Cold makes you burn calories and calories keep you warm.  Roasted nuts with chocolate and peanut butter.  Snickers, salami and cheese.  Dinner with bacon and butter.  Because the world is my refrigerator and fat is my fuel.

5) Cozy.
Yup, cozy, not cold. Because you’d be a fool to go unprepared.  So many layers!  So much sleeping bag.  Non-stop drinking tea, coffee, and coco.  Yeah, it’s cold out but I have all the means to be as warm as I want.

6) Bad ass.
It gives me a certain confidence.  As Bill Bryson put it “I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, “Yeah, I’ve shit in the woods.”  then I get to add “in the snow.”

So get outside!
Yeah it’s cold, but you’re a warm blooded creature.
It’s fun, I swear.

ps – These are very similar reasons to why I run outside in the winter too. 

Next in the winter camping storyline: All Packed!