The last few weeks in Siouxland, give or take a few days here and there, have been very cold. The kind of cold that drives a person to stay indoors, look at life through one’s windows and only venture out when your tongue doesn’t painfully stick to any pieces of metal one is crazy enough to encounter on a dare. During a warmer period of this deep freeze period, I did venture outside to a local state park, Stone State Park in Sioux City, Iowa. It has a number of trails for hiking, and during the winter months, the park’s roads are closed. So to enjoy it, you need to walk. The nice thing about winter months with little snow is that walking becomes a little easier and it’s possible to hike over hillsides normally covered in brush and bramble making it impossible to get through. Allowing one to photograph items like lichen on a fallen log. It was a nice walk with temps in the 40’s, enough to work up a little sweat through my layers. The down side to the winter months is that photographically it can be a bit boring. Getting up early to catch the morning light is very chilling, and some mornings you just don’t want to wake up with a start as a 30 mph wind gust hits your face.
It is a wacky winter with temps jumping back and forth. With temps currently again in the 40’s and 30’s, it feels like a heat wave. Temps in the 20’s would as well after temperatures below -5 plus windchill making it feel like -40. But like all cyclical things, warmer weather is on the way. And the possibility of getting back outside to explore it is exciting.
Jerry Mennenga
Sioux City, Iowa
lostinsiouxland 
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