“It’s a smile, it’s a kiss, it’s a sip of wine…. It’s summertime!”– Kenny Chesney
Everybody loves summer. For a majority of us, it’s our favorite time of year. The thing about summer, though, is that buildup (especially here in Minnesota) of March, April, and May can feel like the 500-step walk up the mightiest of water slides, only to have June, July, and August zip past like that speedy ride down the slide – it leaves you giddy, sun-splashed, and a little dizzy, with a feeling of, “wait, it’s over already?”
When you’re a kid, there’s nothing worse than the end of summer. Care-free days of fun in the sun are brought to a halt by a return to school. It’s a melancholy feeling that really never leaves you — nobody likes to say goodbye to summer.
The folks at Game of Thrones struck marketing gold when they previewed their final season with the ominous line, “Winter is coming”. All of us here in the land of 10,000 lakes simply shrugged, heaved a sigh, and said, “yeah, we know.”
The summer of 2024 got off to a rocky start in the Twin Cities, with a June that did a very impressive imitation of April. Halfway through July and we’ve only hit 90 degrees once, for just a couple of hours on July 14 – a far cry from just last year, when we blew past the 90 mark 33 times. On average we hit 90 13 times in a year, we’re going to have to rally to get there this year.
Temperatures and a few big storms aside, it’s still summer and we still want to grab every ounce of fun out of it that we can.
Jump in the water, walk along a beach, have a glass of iced tea, go to a baseball game, go to a movie, read a book in a hammock, go for an after-dinner walk, go golfing, play tennis, play pickleball, host a barbeque, go fishing, eat ice cream, cruise down a summer road with the windows down and your favorite songs blasting away, go on a dinner cruise with Padelford Riverboats!
Make the most of your summer, it’ll be over as fast as that trip down a water slide. And though Game of Thrones may have taken its final bow in 2019, its promise always looms in Minnesota – winter is coming.
