The limitation with an all year park in the north - illustrated.

I'm sitting here in my office at work, between patients (I figure I have 10 minutes till my next one) and looking out the window at our employee parking lot. It's snowing.

It's been snowing since sometime in the middle of last night. I shoveled the drive this morning, and I'd guess something around 3 inches had fallen overnight. The drive to work was miserably slow; it's our first real snow of the year, and the plows are out but the snow is heavy and slushy, and the roads were slick. Now I'm used to driving in these conditions; I do it every winter.

But it got me thinking as I drove to work about this as a limiting factor for a park in the north. It's not a day to be outside, unless you're 10 years old and building snowmen. But on the other hand, there were some really beautiful places I drove past, where the snow on the trees really makes for a gorgeous vista.

It's winter here, and we generally don't hang around outside. If you're dressed for it, and you're in a place that's designed for it, a walk on a snowy day can be fun, interesting, even exhilirating. But when you think about a theme park and that sort of day outside, it doesn't fit.

I've always thought that most everything would have to be inside, with enclosed walkways or the entire park in a huge superstructure. Days like this just make that limitation much clearer.

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