Traverse City’s First Snowfall

In this episode titled "Traverse City's First Snowfall," Mike Dell begins by greeting listeners and introduces the episode as number 418. He shares that it is day twelve of NaPodPoMo and mentions this is the first episode recorded in real-time rather than in advance. Mike discusses the early snowfall in Traverse City, noting that some areas received significant accumulation while much of it has already melted. He shares the current temperature, converting it to Celsius for clarity, and describes the mixed weather conditions—with rain expected in nearby areas. Continuing with his narrative, Mike reflects on the change of seasons, mentioning the leaves dropping from the trees, particularly maples and oaks, and recounts the recent yard work he has done to clear the leaves. He mentions plans to prepare his tractor for winter, including getting it serviced at the John Deere dealer after removing the mower deck and attaching the snowblower. Mike recounts an outing for his wife's birthday dinner at Outback Steakhouse, describing the significant snowfall while they were dining and the challenges his family faced getting home due to the winter driving conditions. He humorously comments on how drivers often forget how to drive in snow, leading to accidents and challenges on the road. Towards the end of the episode, Mike decides to keep this episode short and mentions that he will talk about Clinch Park, a notable park in Traverse City with an interesting history, in the following episode. He wraps up by wishing listeners a great day and prompts them to catch him later.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
[Speaker 0]In a world created by Mike Dell, I
[Speaker 0]guess you would call it Mike Dell's world.
[Speaker 1]And good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever
[Speaker 1]the case may be. This is Mike, and
[Speaker 1]this is Mike Dell's world number four eighteen
[Speaker 1]for those who are keeping score. This is,
[Speaker 1]day twelve of NAPOD promo. And, for the

(00:22):
[Speaker 1]first time in this series, I'm actually, in
[Speaker 1]real time. What I mean by that is
[Speaker 1]I've been recording them a couple days ahead
[Speaker 1]of time, and then putting them out at,
[Speaker 1]early early early in the morning and, didn't
[Speaker 1]have any time yesterday to record. So, hey.
[Speaker 1]Today is actually the twelfth of November. And

(00:46):
[Speaker 1]I figured I'd take this opportunity to just,
[Speaker 1]you know, sort of make a little, almost
[Speaker 1]mid month update. We had our first snow
[Speaker 1]here in Traverse City. I don't know. You
[Speaker 1]know? Certain places got a lot of snow.
[Speaker 1]Certain places didn't really, but most of it's
[Speaker 1]all melted off now. It's up to forty

(01:08):
[Speaker 1]one degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know. That'd be
[Speaker 1]what? Plus five or six Celsius? Actually, I
[Speaker 1]could tell you that here in a second,
[Speaker 1]but, suffice to say, it's above freezing. There's
[Speaker 1]a little bit of rain off to the
[Speaker 1]east, of us, but, let's see. Yeah. Anyway,

(01:30):
[Speaker 1]a little bit of rain off to the
[Speaker 1]east of us. No big deal. Yeah. What
[Speaker 1]is it? Five hey. I guess pretty good.
[Speaker 1]Five degrees Celsius or forty one Fahrenheit is,
[Speaker 1]what I've got at the airport right now.
[Speaker 1]And since I'm not that far from the
[Speaker 1]airport, that makes sense. But, anyway, I just
[Speaker 1]wanna make sure I got an episode out

(01:50):
[Speaker 1]today and, update you on what's going on.
[Speaker 1]Ironically, or not ironically. That isn't even a
[Speaker 1]right term. Why does everybody say that? It's
[Speaker 1]not ironic. It's just what happened. Anyway, the
[Speaker 1]the snow or the leaves have you know,

(02:11):
[Speaker 1]we have mixed maples and oaks. Maples dropped
[Speaker 1]their leaves earlier, and oaks generally hang on
[Speaker 1]to them. And maples were hanging on to
[Speaker 1]them until just, you know, tell this tell
[Speaker 1]this no, really. I mean, we had a
[Speaker 1]lot of leaves. I blew all the leaves

(02:32):
[Speaker 1]out of the yard. I guess it was
[Speaker 1]Saturday afternoon, something like that. And, it is
[Speaker 1]Wednesday. And now the snow's melted that fell,
[Speaker 1]you know, between Sunday and and now. And
[Speaker 1]a whole bunch of leaves came down. You
[Speaker 1]would never know I even blew the leaves.

(02:52):
[Speaker 1]So, I've gotta do a quick run through
[Speaker 1]the yard with this leaf blower again before
[Speaker 1]it snows again. And also gotta get out
[Speaker 1]to mom's house and and get all the
[Speaker 1]leaves picked up out there, get the the
[Speaker 1]mower deck off the tractor, get the snowblower
[Speaker 1]on the tractor, and then get the tractor

(03:15):
[Speaker 1]over to the tractor doctor for its yearly
[Speaker 1]checkup. Get all the fluids, replaced and or
[Speaker 1]serviced, and I'll make sure that that's gonna
[Speaker 1]function through the winter or at least attempt
[Speaker 1]to. So that's the the plan. So Friday,
[Speaker 1]that's my plan is to get the leaves

(03:37):
[Speaker 1]picked up, get the tractor situated enough to
[Speaker 1]get it to the tractor doctor, the John
[Speaker 1]Deere dealer. And, hopefully, that'll all that'll be
[Speaker 1]all that needs to happen with the tractor
[Speaker 1]until it gets back from the shop. And
[Speaker 1]I put the cab on it and get
[Speaker 1]it all battened down and ready to go

(03:59):
[Speaker 1]for, real winter, which could start anytime. So
[Speaker 1]but it sure did feel like winter. We
[Speaker 1]went to dinner Sunday evening for my wife's
[Speaker 1]birthday. Went to Outback Steakhouse and had a
[Speaker 1]big group and and that was cool, but,
[Speaker 1]it probably snowed six inches while we were

(04:21):
[Speaker 1]eating dinner. It was just that, you know,
[Speaker 1]wet heavy, you know, lake effect snow. And,
[Speaker 1]yeah. It was, pretty intense. And then, you
[Speaker 1]know, we drove, you know, Outback's kind of
[Speaker 1]on the west side of town. I drove
[Speaker 1]back to the east side. And by the
[Speaker 1]time we got over here, there was hardly
[Speaker 1]any. So it was a a thick band

(04:43):
[Speaker 1]that went right over the west side of
[Speaker 1]the town, and my mom and sister had
[Speaker 1]a little bit of trouble getting home. Not
[Speaker 1]really trouble. They got four wheel drive, whatever.
[Speaker 1]You know, each of them do. And and,
[Speaker 1]there's a big hill on the west side
[Speaker 1]to get out of town. If you live
[Speaker 1]west of town, you have to go, you
[Speaker 1]know, at least one hill. They had to

(05:04):
[Speaker 1]go up over Green Hill, and I guess
[Speaker 1]there were people having trouble making the hill.
[Speaker 1]So it was a bit of a challenge.
[Speaker 1]But, typical typical winter here in Traverse City
[Speaker 1]or typical beginning beginning of winter. I call
[Speaker 1]it amateur winter driver mode because, people forget
[Speaker 1]how to drive in snow. And that's where,

(05:29):
[Speaker 1]you know, they have a lot of racks,
[Speaker 1]and they go into the ditch and you
[Speaker 1]know? But that's typical everywhere. I don't I
[Speaker 1]don't think that's anything really unique here. It,
[Speaker 1]just it it always takes people by surprise.
[Speaker 1]I drive like foot you know, putty duddy,
[Speaker 1]pots most of the time, so not a

(05:52):
[Speaker 1]not a big change for me. I just
[Speaker 1]know that, I need to slow down. You
[Speaker 1]know? And then you get these these people
[Speaker 1]with these big four wheel drives and and
[Speaker 1]all that, and they think, oh, I can
[Speaker 1]go everywhere. Yeah. You can go. But you're
[Speaker 1]not gonna stop much better than, than somebody
[Speaker 1]in a regular two wheel drive car or

(06:12):
[Speaker 1]truck or whatever. But, so be it. But,
[Speaker 1]anyway, well, I better get this going. I
[Speaker 1]I'm gonna I'm gonna make this a short
[Speaker 1]and sweet one. What I was planning on
[Speaker 1]talking about today, I'll talk about tomorrow, Clinch
[Speaker 1]Park. That's a little a little that's a

(06:34):
[Speaker 1]a rather major park in Traverse City right
[Speaker 1]on the waterfront and has an interesting history.
[Speaker 1]So we'll be talking about that tomorrow. But