It's no secret. The novelty of snow has definitely worn off

My brother tells a tale of his trip to Europe. He and the other motley students who were backpacking across the continent took a boat ride down the Rhine. As they rounded a bend, they gasped in unison and shouted, "Look! A castle!'

By the time they ended their river journey, some 145 castles later, they were playing cards on deck, looking up occasionally, and muttering "Oh. Look. A castle."

We had the same experience when we went to Arizona eight summers ago.

"Look! A cactus!"

"Look! A mesa!"

"Look! A fire!" (this was the year of the Show Low wildfire and we never lost sight of it or the smoke in the hundreds of miles we traveled.)

By the time we rolled into Phoenix (actually plummeted into Phoenix since we were coming down off the mountain from Flagstaff), we were more excited about seeing McDonald's than we were cacti, mesas or fires. McDonald's had water.

When the first snowfall comes, there is such a magic about it. The glittering white suspended in the air, swirling and charming and breathtaking. The second snowfall is pretty, too, and third is okay.

After the third snowfall, I'd rather see a mesa covered with burning cacti. In a castle. On the Rhine.

We are terribly spoiled in the South. We usually get away with just that one pretty snowfall and a few days of miserable sleet, but this year has been unreal. I used to say "It's snowing" to catapult my excited youngest child out of bed, into clothes and through the front doors. Now, if I make the mistake of letting him know it's snowing, I have to dig him out of the mountain of bedclothes, Legos, Bionicles, cats and dog. The dog helps -- he likes the snow. The snow makes it much, much easier to see where all of the other dogs have already done their business so he can zoom on the spot and wallow around in it. It isn't so much a matter of "don't eat the yellow snow" in our house as it is "don't wear it."

On Valentines Day, my husband and I went out to eat at a restaurant that did not have plastic utensils, a rare treat that included an entire meal where I didn't have to say "Put that down" or "No, Red Lobster does not have video games in the lobby."

Unfortunately, everyone else in town had the same idea. While we were waiting for our table, we struck up a conversation with the group sitting in the lobby with us. Some of them had come down from Chicago to attend a wedding and were heading back to the airport in Nashville the following morning (Monday.) When the man estimated the drive time at an hour, my husband and I both laughed out loud.

"It's going to be snowing," I said. "You'd better add another hour to that."

"Oh, I know how to drive on snow," said the Chicagoan proudly.

"Yeah, but Southerners don't," my husband, who drives professionally, added sourly.

That's not really true. I know many, many Southerners who can drive well on ice and snow. Of course, most of them were born in Pennsylvania or Illinois or Rhode Island ...

It just comes down to practice. We rarely get enough to practice on. I'm sure those Chicagoans are just as bad at making good iced tea. If you don't practice, you can't excel.

I have some friends from my brief stay in Alabama who aren't having any problems with it at all. Andalusia, where we lived for two years, got about 6 inches of snow, which is probably more than it has gotten in the previous 10 years -- combined. But Covington County, which brags of having more unpaved roads than any other county in Alabama, is a great place to practice driving on snow and ice. The dirt down there is a mixture of red clay and sand and when it gets wet, it is slicker and greasier than anything the Exxon Valdez ever spewed out into Alaskan waters. If you can drive on an Alabama mudslick, snow is a snap.

By the time this winter is over, driving on snow should be a snap for all of us -- we're getting lots of practice now!