Minnawaii

I love summer. Now that it is here, i feel better. I know, some of you are thinking rain and tornadoes do not constitute summer, but when you live with 6 months of snow, it does. It reminds me of when I use to live on Oahu. Those were great years of sun year round, with the occasional rainy months, but even then, the sun would show up for a couple hours in the day. Rain was never and issue there, if anything it was welcomed... unlike here.

The bad thing about rain in Minnesota during the summer is the loss of motor skills people experience. I mean that literally. People wrestle with common sense when they are handling a car in rain, and worse yet, hail. Example... my wife and I were driving to her work on I-394 when it started to rain, and soon small bits of hail came as well. That's when the white knuckling started. Everyone starts to hit the brakes at random times, and i don't mean gently, i mean full on slam, FOR NO REASON. Merging was no longer an option for those already on the interstate. If its raining, YOUR NOT ALLOWED ON! I could not understand these people. It was starting to stress me out, mainly because Karen was late getting to work and so she was doing some NASCAR driving of her own. Then it happened. People started slamming on their brakes to stop. I thought it must have been a terrible accident from the awesome defensive driving everyone was doing. No, no it wasn't. It was the most unbelievable display if ignorance i have seen in a while. People had stopped ON the interstate under an overpass because of the pea sized hail. ON the interstate. And the reason they stopped was because they had expensive cars. Really, REALLY? Because you own an expensive car, that gives you the right to come to a dead stop ON the interstate to protect YOUR car over anybody else. Never mind that there are hundreds of cars behind you coming at 60 miles per hour (or more). Never mind there are Others with expensive cars behind you. Never mind that the welfare of others are at hand. At least you know you will not be making an insurance claim on this day. As if that wasn't bad enough, the thing that really capped it for me was that there was more then one person that decided this was a good idea. On a three lane interstate (five including the shoulders) there were a total of about ten individuals, or more if there were passengers, that came to the conclusion that this was feasible and legal. U-N-R-E-A-L. These PEOPLE, who are clearly a waste of good skin, are still out there with their licenses, so be warned. Rain+Minnesotans= anarchy driving.

So there it is. If you are not from here, and you want to visit in the summer, your biggest fear is going to be driving in the rain on the Interstate. Other then that... its a lot like Hawaii. Sort of.