Whatever Weather

I had the most amazing day today. Truly a gift from God. I spent the entire day with my Lakota family here in SD. Two of the girls in the family are in my class and the mother is my closest friend here. There are seven children in the family in all, though five are grandchildren from a previous marriage (complicated to explain). The mother is white and all the children have beautiful blond flowing hair. But they are Lakota to the core. The father is actually a very well known Native activist. Anyway, all ten of us, ranging in ages from 2 years to 45ish, roamed the Badlands for over three hours. Not only was is breathtakingly beautiful, but you will not believe what we found: dino bone fragments. I was just on cloud nine. It was so amazing to walk through history like that, family in tow. I could have stayed out there forever. After walking for three hours, we arrived at this spring and had a water fight. My hair is currently caked with algae, mud and sweat and I feel wonderful! We later went agate hunting in another area. I brought back about 30 pounds of amazing looking rocks. The kids each found arrowheads, which was so cool to me. I swear I found one, but the others seemed skeptical. Anyway, it proved to be a truly amazing day.

The weather was simply gorgeous. It hovered around 70, without a trace of humidity. My Cuban roots just soaked it up! I absolutely loved it! But then when I got home, I was shocked to see a weather warning for our area on my computer. This is what it currently is saying:

"A blizzard warning remains in effect from 12pm Monday to 6pm Tuesday. Rain will change to heavy snow late Monday morning and continue through Tuesday afternoon. Snow accumulations to range between 8 and 14 inches. Expect winds between 30 and 50mph."

Now we have had two blizzards since I have lived here, so I feel that I am getting used to them. But I assure you, if you could look outside right now and enjoy the 79 degree weather--I assure you that you would doubt the accuracy of this report.

But then you would remember its South Dakota and would go and get your snow boots on.