Time to Go Outside

Ah the roar of jetplanes in the sky. That tells me it’s time to go outside.

You might be asking yourself, huh? Well, every year Ellington Field hosts an airshow in mid October.  This also happens to almost always coincide with the first real cool weather in Houston. So we often have the windows open at the same time the Blue Angels show up to practice. It’s quite loud.

But it’s a small price to pay for pleasant weather. We typically go 6 months with the AC running non-stop. Even when this nice weather hits it usually only lasts a few days at a time before we have to turn it back on. Not until December does it really get a break. In typical Houston fashion, the day the jets were all practicing was perfect but the weekend of the actual airshow was up near 90.

This year actually had one of the latest cool fronts ever recorded. Normally some hints will come in late September even though they don’t last long. But our first didn’t hit until mid October. Fortunately, it was also a good one. The previous weekend we went on a campout with my son’s scout pack. Perfect weather for camping.

I’ve always lived in the southern part of the United States where snow is a fantasy and really cold weather means it might, just maybe, reach freezing for a couple minutes. So for us, this first cool front is a long anticipated event. We can finally go outside and do things.

Sure, we’ll go to the beach and pool throughout the summer. And there are plenty of events which occur outside during that long 6 month stretch of heat. But no one wants to go outside.

I’ve learned that this concept boogles the minds of people who grow up on the north part of the country. And now that my parents live in Maine and I’ve visited my wife’s family in Canada a few times in the summer I understand. Their summer time is our fall. It’s wonderful up there at the time it’s death down here. About the time we start to go outside, they start hibernating indoors to avoid the cold and snow.

Enjoy the indoors northerners! We’ll be outside.