Carol Labuzzetta, MS asks about the coldest place we’ve ever been. Oh, Carol, do I have a story for you!
Perhaps you’re sipping from a mug of hot chocolate in front of a crackling real log fireplace. Or, like me, sitting in a sunny courtyard with a running water fountain in San Miguel, Mexico, where it will be 70° Fahrenheit later today, a disappointing 5° cooler than yesterday.
This is where Rebecca and I escape the January cold in our home state of Iowa, USA.
My story begins on Sunday, January 5, 2014. When Rebecca and I met several years earlier, we lived 323 miles apart, she in Clarinda, in southwest Iowa, and I in Decorah, to the northeast.
That year, we spent the holidays at her home. As we were both still working, I needed to drive back to Decorah because my Luther College January term class began the next day. As I got in my car, I set my iPhone GPS.
And, full of hope, I turned the ignition key of my four-month-old Subaru Forester. Still young, it had never experienced -20° combined with a fifteen-mile-per-hour arctic wind that had loosened from the north. When I heard the first sluggish crank, I knew it was game on.
Since Rebecca and I have lived in Iowa most of our adult lives, we know its weather extremes. My mother and father experienced 118° in 1934, without air conditioning, and I recall the unimaginable -46 ° in 1996 in Elkader, just 30 miles east of Decorah.
Cars are like people in that when cold, all their parts must work harder. So I worried. The current temperature of -20° would be the high of the day. And we’d be fighting a northerly wind most of the way. Usually, a full tank of gas got me to Decorah with around 50 miles to spare, but that day, the cold and into the wind meant I would have to get out of the car to pump gas.
This is a good point in the story to distinguish real temperature from wind chill. Real is actual, and wind chill is what the actual, actually feels like on one’s skin. So, I knew that for around five hours, my Subaru’s thin chassis was the only thing between me and the -46.
As the car warmed up, I thought, How long can a human survive -46?
Life is taking chances, right? Rebecca and I hugged and, per usual, she said ‘safe travel.’ Once I got north of Des Moines, I was able to pick up a Minnesota Public Radio station, which announced that Governor Mark Dayton had just closed all public schools the following day.
I knew my residential college was holding first-day classes, but had also put out word that students should not travel if they felt the conditions were too dangerous.
Sure enough, my car’s gas gauge showed less than a quarter tank remaining about 100 miles from home. I stopped at a small station in Hampton, about two hours from home. When I stepped outside the car, the glacial air hit me immediately.
My gloves were thickish, but no match. I pressed the handle to release the gas I hoped was still liquid, and once I saw the gas pump indicator move, I slipped back in my car.
Once home, I turned on all faucets to make sure water was still running through the pipes.
The next morning, in a toasty classroom, I introduced students to the intricacies of American Politics. Unprecedentedly, at the end of the two hours, no one wanted to leave.
On my way home, I parked on Water Street across from my bank to put a document in my safe deposit box. The temperature was -28, and the wind was 18 MPH, still out of the north. Because there were few cars on the street, I maneuvered mine into a slot 30 feet from the bank’s lobby door. Bundled with thick gloves, a scarf, and a stocking cap pulled low, I exited and started across the street.
After three steps, I froze, pivoted, and retreated to bank another day.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
