Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Joys of Minnesota

  When I landed in Minnesota and lived on borrowed chunks of time, I would compare stuff with India, as that was my only point of reference. With time, the novelty wore off, but these things still stuck in mind.


Library system - now this is across USA, but I will comment as a MN user.
Its unbelievable how many things are free ! Books. Magazine even. DVDs of movies & TV shows, and learning stuff too. Children's books. Do you know how expensive all of these are to buy ? And then to store books & dispose later. Big Thanks to Libraries.
Online system makes life easier. Search & order books. Stop-by the library for only a few minutes to pick it up. Return books via a slot in drive-through window. Renewal in the online-account. Late fees are just a few cents generally.

Trails - nearly every city has one. Or atleast the sidewalk system is far & wide & clean to go run.

Lakes - water & ponds everywhere. Not called "Land of 100 thousand Lakes" for nothing.

Strawberry - I am always in awe of the Strawberries. Each one being juicy, chunky and large size. 

Caribou Coffee - Now that is coffee. Its really good.
Plus this is the store I approached when I got lost driving through highways without GPS & cellphone. They let me use their landline. Those were olden days, I was new in USA and only a person in my situation can appreciate their help.

Clear Blue sky, lush greenery which pops out every spring. Winter has its share of evergreens to look at.

Winter wonderland after every snowstrom, snow shower, snow blizzard. When bare trees, fence frames and random still objects are like coated in snow. Its called hoar-frost. 
In Feb, Mar & April, there is so much snow, there is no place to shovel it. Its spilling on sidewalks & roads. We run out of place to push it in. The 2-car driveway narrows down to cycle-width.

There are a whole lot of memes that perfectly capture the living in MN experience. Especially the winter MinneSnowta. That's what the real thing is.