But the last few days of December, I wore quadruple layers of sweatshirts, covered by a fleece-lined jacket. On my head, I wore a headband that covered my forehead and ears and a hat. A wool scarf covered my chest and doubled as a face-mask, and on my hands, I wore fleece-lined gloves. I also wore two pair of socks and insulated, waterproof boots up to my ankles.
Not in Florida, silly! I spent the last few days of December in Michigan.
The first day there, even though there was still some snow left on the ground, the temperature was comfortably in the 50's. I felt cocky and didn't even zipper my jacket. The mercury went down hill from there. Day 2 was windy and bitter cold; 25 degrees at the most. It's been decades since I've felt this kind of cold. My ears stung through and through until I discovered the joy of a fleecy headband underneath my hat. Day 3 was even more bitter. Bitter enough that we went to JoAnn's Fabrics and bought flannel and fleece material to make pajama bottoms. Then, that night it snowed. Now, I was giddy as a child and stood outside in the unforgiving wind catching snowflakes on my tongue. My knee caps were frozen by the time I came inside. Oddly enough, the next day, after a few inches of snow, the wind abated and it was tolerable enough to walk in for a while, providing I was completely bundled up. Everyone laughed at me, stiffly walking in layers of clothing like a robot. Michigan folk are used to this. My Florida blood is way too thin for this kind of cold. The last two days there were unnervingly bitter. It was 9 degrees on New Year's Day when we awoke and it only reached 18 by the time we were driving to the airport.
One of the highlights of the trip, besides getting to see Jayne, was going to Rochester to see the town ablaze in Christmas lights. The entire town had lights strung rooftop to sidewalk with dazzling strands of Christmas lights. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen.
The other fun adventure was going to buy Alpaca socks.
Don't you just love the faces on these Alpacas? They're strangely human looking! We visited an Alpaca farm in Attica, Michigan called Funny Face Alpacas. The owner, Darrell, gave us a tour of his farm and opened the gates to let his Alpacas and two Llamas come face-to-face with us. Jilli kept saying, "ooooou, ooooou," and wasn't afraid of them nuzzling her nose. One Alpaca tried to eat my camera! We spent about 40 minutes in freezing temperatures totally fascinated by these gentle, friendly creatures. We each bought a pair of Alpaca socks, which I desperately needed since my little-piggies were popsicle-toes.
