Baby, it's COLD outside.

I'm REALLY trying hard to make friends with winter.

I think I may have been meant to live near the ocean. I love to swim, feel the warm sun on my exposed skin and hunt for shade if it gets too warm. I lived on Newport beach for 6 months or so and really enjoyed it. I sure didn't enjoy the crowds and insanity that seemed to come along with it. But, on Newport Beach, I never once had to scrape sun off of my car windshield or shovel sun off of my sidewalk.

Be that as it may, here I am. Smack Dab in the middle of cold country, in the dead of winter.

I have been trying to land on an activity that puts me outside in the snow with a smile on my face. That's no small feat, I dislike skiing, snowmobiling and ice climbing. They all take too much gear and are more than I want to invest in. I was thinking about the gentle art of snowshoeing. I spoke to my friend Jimbo and asked if he had some shoes that I could buy, he said, "Steve, I have just the thing. I bought some snowshoes about ten years ago, used them once, and will NEVER go again. It was torture".

So . . . there you have it.

I had the snowshoes and actually looked at them with intention last year but didn't have the gumption to try them. So I stored them away safely where they wouldn't hurt anyone.

This year I have actually been snowshoeing a few times and let me tell you . . . it's not much fun at all. It's like taking a very strenuous trudge through ridiculously deep snow in freezing cold temperatures for no good reason at all. AND, even with the snowshoes on I still sink nearly up to my knees in the snow.

There's no real payoff in snowshoeing, it's just a long walk in a circle in adverse conditions.

Maybe I'm missing something?