I spent a good chunk of my youth in the colder northern region of the U.S. The kind of place where lakes froze over in the winter and people could drive their cars onto the lake. The kind of place that has things like snowmobiles and snowblowers.

With climate change, I don’t know how much this applies anymore. And for many people I’ve met over the years, these things are hard to imagine. Driving a car onto a lake? For real? Yep.

These days? I hate being cold. I don’t have the appropriate cold weather gear to handle that kind of frozen wasteland of a winter. I don’t want to do it. I’m convinced that the people living there are so sun-deprived as to have gone insane enough to continue living there.

Move me to Costa Rica where the weather is beautifully hot all year long.

There is one thing I have pretty fond memories of though. Well, it’s more a feeling than a full memory, really. Have you been in the forest in the middle of winter?

In the summer, there’s noise coming from everywhere. The bugs buzzing, the wind blowing through the trees. Birds chirping. Animals looking for food. There’s always something happening.