Polar Vortex Hits Michigan With a Roundhouse

We burn wood in our house. We have the temperature set at 72. When I woke up this morning, our living room was 63 degrees. You could feel the chill. I turned on Deb's old space heater from the old station and ran upstairs back to my warm bed. My wife woke up, turned it off and yelled at me. It was on for 20 minutes but it warmed the room up to 65 in just those 20 minutes. I was dumb to leave it unattended, she may be right.

Before I set off for work at 4:20, I had to load up my woodburner. I put on my pants, a shirt, s sweatshirt, a zip up sweatshirt, head sock and my heavy Carhartt. Plus boots, you wear boots in this.

No big deal. Load up the burner. The wind is HOWLING! Hop in Mrs. Pants ride because her employer cares whether she lives or dies and she got the day off. I start driving. It's like the car never warms up. I was cold in all of those clothes. You HAVE to wear gloves. Touching the steering wheel could burn you.

On the way to work, the roads are slick as hell. A morning fog froze and the roads were so slick, you had to crab drive your car into the winds or be blown off the road. If you go in the ditch and stall, you could die. So, no pressure. It was like a post apocalyptic drive so surreal, it was haunting. Everything frozen and crazy frost patterns... I was waiting for the White Walkers.

I make it to work. I am so happy, I shovel the walkway for my coworkers.

State of Emergency indeed. If you don't layer up, don't even think about going out. Winter is here. It'll be in the mid 40's on Sunday. Gotta love Michigan.