It snowed the day we moved to northern Michigan.
It was April, and we were from downstate, where the winters are shorter and milder and more ice than snow.
I was giddy with excitement and a little apprehensive, wondering just what it was we'd let ourselves in for.
It felt like a great adventure — as if we were braving the Yukon winter for the promise of gold.
When real winter finally came, we were enchanted by the world of ice shanties and seasonal roads and winter emergency car kits.
By mounds of snow piled so high we could play "King of the Mountain" with our dogs.
And by sand, instead of salt, to melt it.
We trekked across frozen lakes, snowshoed in wilderness parks, and cut down a Christmas tree in the woods and dragged it home Norman Rockwell-style.
"You just have to find something you like to do outside," I told newcomers to the area.
There were scary times too, near-misses of the kind we all experience if we live up here long enough.
Once my truck went into sled-mode as it started down a particularly long hill.
It spun in lazy circles and finally came to a stop in a ditch, facing the wrong way.
Weak-kneed with relief, I stumbled to the only house I'd seen.
Its elderly occupants poured me coffee and called my boss to let her know I'd be a while.
Later, I would try to thank them with a pound of pure Kona.
Instead our dog ate it, causing her to whimper and drool and pace the house to the accelerated beat of her heart.
Another time we were caught in a blizzard white-out so thick it was impossible to see.
Steering what we hoped was a course down a back road, we slammed into a snowdrift and had to abandon our car.
As we trudged in minus-degree temperatures in the direction of a farmhouse, all I wanted to do was stop and sleep.
But my husband kept urging me on, propelled by the specter of hypothermia.
It was a good thing, too. The farm wife took one look at my nose and rushed me to the bathroom to thaw it under running water. In the mirror above the sink I understood why: It looked like a chunk of fried chicken with freezer burn.
Thirty years later, I still bore the scars. At the first hint of heat or chill, my nose turned a shade of red that caused people to avert their eyes or look at me in concern in the mistaken belief I'd been crying.
Still, my enthusiasm for winter was only dampened, not extinguished.
As I grow older, though, the winter seems to grow longer. It's harder to cope with the relentlessly gray skies.
More and more I find myself entertaining the notion of moving to northern California, with its laid-back northern Michigan feel and 57 percent average wintertime sunshine.
Less and less, I find myself taking my own advice to find something I like to do outdoors.
So when winter festivals such as Winter WowFest began to crop up in the region, I embraced the idea.
They encourage us to celebrate the inevitable. They offer us an escape from cabin fever.
Most of all, they remind us of what we love about winter — and about northern Michigan.
Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
