Author: Lara

This Sunday was all about the Lakeside Winter Festival at Ontario Beach Park!

Here’s some shots from the day:

Good morning, Rochester!

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Siberian husky dog sledding demonstration (Mmm, Alaskan memories!)

Let’s go! Let’s go!

Mid-howl. Love it! Probably my favorite shot of the day.

They’re so beautiful I don’t know how they even stand themselves!

Pay attention to ME!!!

Horse-drawn carriage rides through the snow.

Trekking the snow-covered beach to get to the Lake Ontario Polar Plunge!

Folks scrambling up ice mounds to find the perfect scenic lookout point.

Let’s all take a moment to admire the Santa Clause, the women dressed as ducks, and green-wigged fellows with plungers on their heads.

Did I mention it was like 10 degrees out? Brrrr! At least all the money raised went to a great cause – the Special Olympics!

I spy at least one hundred people who are braver and/or crazier (depending on your perspective) than I am. Also, please note the gents with the floaties. Ha! Humans are the greatest.

A slippery walk across a beach of solid ice back to the Port of Rochester terminal

The Chili Challenge! Tough competition…I had a few favorites! Sooooo good!

The New York Finger Lakes wine tasting event was pretty magnificent too! I definitely walked away with a few new favorites. Man, they grow good grapes and make some fine wine up here! (speaking of…see below!)

Food truck clam chowder? Yes, please!

Hot chocolate float? Again…yes!

Snowshoeing? Don’t mind if I do!

Snow sculpture competition. You’re doing it right.

Welcome to winter at Lake Ontario!

Fun and chilly, just how they like it!

P.S. Please click here to vote for my ice wine cocktail so I can win tickets to the NY State Ice Wine Festival this weekend. You can vote once every 24 hours through Thursday and I need all the votes I can get! So, even if you’ve already voted, please do so again! We’ve fallen short to less original and imaginative recipes and need your help to get caught up! Support creativity! Support your friends :)

Click the link, then on “Festival Details” then on “The Contest” then “Vote” for the Pear Weather Friend…and click share to encourage the people you know to vote for it too! :) Any votes are graciously accepted and greatly appreciated!

Snow Storm Nemo struck on Friday dropping somewhere around 12-16 inches of powder. This was a view from a window at the theatre midway through the day.

Because I’m a Texan through and through and do not have enough experience to drive in this crap, I smartly opted to take the bus to and from work. The trip to work was quick and uneventful as the snow only started falling right as I walked into the theatre. Going home was a beast of tyrannic proportions. I trekked a few blocks to the bus stop in beautiful, quiet and peaceful calf-deep snow, insanely grateful that I had the foresight to invest in excellent quality snow boots. The bus was obviously packed like a can of sardines. Wet, smelly, hot, sardines. The 2.5 mile bus ride from the theatre to my apartment, typically a six minute journey, took 1 hour…in jerky stop and go traffic that incited instant nausea that made you want to puke your guts out on the snoozing dude in neon green sunglasses and psychedelic bell-bottoms. The snow covered all the bus stop signs, so consequently, when we did miraculously reach speeds above 4 mph, the driver missed all the stops and was rudely informed of it by cranky passengers (I’d like to see them do any better). I did snag a seat about halfway through the trip…right beside a gentleman on his way to serve time in jail. Yup. He was mad too. It was excellent. I did manage to make it home safely, and if I could have found the ground beneath all that still-piling snow, I would have kissed it. I congratulated myself on surviving with a bowl of chips and guacamole (this is the only appropriate “yay! you’re still here!” snack in my book) and promptly settled in for a night of red wine, freshly “baked” mug cookies, and a rousing game of trivial pursuit (which arrived addressed to my roommate’s husband, mysteriously and unexpectedly, from an unknown sender) with Cristina and Youness while the blizzard continued through the night. It was a wonderfully relaxing evening. And when we could take no more trivial pursuit (because anybody can only handle so much trivial pursuit), we called it quits and I settled in for a long winter’s nap.

The next morning I realized that if I wanted to actually go anywhere, I would have to dig my car out.

And here’s how I felt about that.

Yup.

I spent 45 minutes A) finding, B) scraping off, and C) shoveling out (like, with an actual shovel) my car. Daily cardio = complete.

Because you simply cannot let a snow like this pass you by without turning it into an opportunity to go sledding, I set out to find a pair of snow pants (a first for me!) for as little money as possible. The last time Ted and I went sledding between Christmas and New Years we wore jeans…which was all we had. They were functional, but it was cold, soaking wet, and there was no cushioning against built-in snow ramps that send you airborne before plopping you ass-first (um, if you’re lucky) back down onto an epic mound of packed snow. So, learning from past experience, snow pants it is.

I checked a few local sporting goods stores before deciding that I am entirely too sensible (read: cheap and smart) to spend $110 on a pair of snow pants that is already a 40% discount off the original price, which I will wear approximately six times a year. In a last ditch effort I tried Gander Mountain, my holy grail store for cute yet practical outdoor apparel (where my amazing snow boots and a couple of my favorite thermal tees are from!). Miraculously, I spied a lone pair of warm, insulated, cushioned, and waterproof women’s snow pants, in my size, sitting all by their lonesome on a clearance rack, totaling $19.48. Sold! Armed with my proud purchase I drove to Mendon Ponds park and hit the hills!

The pictures don’t do it justice, but a good number of people actually do sled, snowshoe, and cross country ski there, and there are some pretty fantastic hills at Mendon Ponds as well. One so awesome and with such a great bump, in fact, that I cracked my sled in half as I sailed down. It was worth it. Nothing a little gaff tape won’t fix. I am glad I thought better of my initial plan to coat the bottom of my sled with a thin glaze of rain-x for increased speed. The sledding, as anticipated, was great and those new snow pants made a world of difference! Another wise “I live in New York now” investment checked off the list.

After sledding I cleaned up and joined my friend Meg at the theatre for a NextStage showing of The Agony and The Esctacy of Steve Jobs, a great one-man monologue by Mike Daisy and performed by friend and Geva regular Remi about the Apple empire and where our electronics really come from. It’s a piece that is thought-provoking and really exposes some interesting information, but is so personable and humorous that it never lets you get bogged down. I loved it! After the show Meg and I had a couple of drinks at the theatre’s bar and talked about anything and everything with a few of our other friends while waiting for Next to Normal to let out. A low-key, fun night was just what I needed after a long day of snow-bunnying (it’s totally a word).

Hope you all enjoyed your Nemo leftovers too!