"Watch out!... The car in front of us is sliding!..." - My mate, alerts me for the car sliding from one side to the other of the road on I80... We are driving on a freezing rain storm, trying to get to New York...
The car finally stops on the right side of the road and the young girl on the wheel seams ok as we drive by... After some minutes she overtakes us as if she was driving on dry weather... I fight with myself for a couple of miles, we see another car spinning on the road... I get scared and end up deciding that we should abort our plans and drive back to the hotel...

This is the 2'nd time I pull back in two days... I can remember going through insane limits several times... Driving long distances at insane speeds, climbing alone without climbing skills and safety equipment, you name it... Today even a short walk through the woods seamed to scare me as I heard the trees cracking due to ice... Maybe I'm watching to much tv and paying to much attention to weather.com... Maybe I'm more of a grown up, than I thought I was several posts ago...

"With the storm that's comming tomorrow, all this snow will be gone due to rain and wind..." - We're chatting with a cross coutry skier at Ricketts Glen State Park PA, it's sub freezing and we're walking on several inches of powder snow...

"This is this years first snow" - he continues - "I love winter time in this place"... I can understand him, I think to myself as we walk away... Except for our footsteps we hear nothing but silence... As usual, as I get immersed into these places I stop feeling the cold weather and my mind starts finding images on every turn of the way...

Later on, the respect for nature, trail conditions and obviously fear, made us back off after only the first one of several dozens of waterfalls...

"but sir, this is a Lincoln!!!..." - I'm at the the car rental park in Newark airport and when I see the car that was reserved for me I ask for something different...
It was not my intention to offend of of the crown jewels of US auto industry, but the car just seamed too big and clumsy... But considering that we had a considerable amount of luggage we took it... As with any other car, after a short trip, I had forgotten about about how it looked or felt...

Until... On out fourth day in the Pocono Mountains region we where forced to leave the office on the middle of the day during a snow storm... After removing some inches of snow from the windshield, and trying to find my way out of the parking lot (it's difficult to tell where's the road when everything looks white) I drove slowly to the hotel, wishing I was driving something else... Somewhere else...

Later on I could not stay in the hotel, I picked up the camera and used it as an excuse to walk in the woods under falling snow... It's true, I tend to find myself in strange places... Kneeling down on soft snow and feeling the cold breath of nature was all I needed...

“” We could go to the end of the world, but today we’ll just go to the office”… - This thought comes to my mind several times whenever I enter my car in the morning and turn the key…

I have written before about my contradiction of loving the pure outdoors and driving a 4x4 that pollutes more that normal cars… Driving on it to the office every day, acts as a reminder that there is a big world out there, far away from the usual maze of chaos and conference calls…

I know, there are probably better ways for reminders, but I can only act rationally during a small percentage of my time…