Taking issue (on a non-issue)

Mr. G.K. Chesterton probably never imagined that his newspaper essays would be compiled for the enjoyment and edification of future generations.  His writing strikes me as that of a person immanently present in the present and preposterously humble as well.  So he probably didn't anticipate that nearly 80 years after his death, an American would dig up his essays, read them avidly as if searching for truth, and take umbridge with one simple little paragraph. 

In it he said, "England is the only place with weather.  . . . In America, they have only extremes of hot and cold." 
Excuse me?!  Excuse me?!  (I know.  I've posted on this before, but I can't get over it.  I mean, he insults Calvinism on a regular basis, but it's his comments on our weather that drive me to a fury.  Isn't human nature ridiculous?  Or maybe it's just me.)

Mr. Chesterton, you have irritated me.  I am afraid that my fury and your insult are too shocking to be wiped out even with an apology.  There is only one way by which that insult can be erased, and that way I choose.  I am going to prove you that you were wrong in what you said. 

 We were driving home from Ted and Alli's wedding in Berthoud, Colorado, (a wedding of which I have no pictures, naturally, because I never seem to be in a place to take pictures of people), and we took a detour through Rocky Mountain National Park just as a mountain thunderstorm was beginning to build. 



Chesterton boasted that the English clouds posed for famous artists whose names I don't remember. Well, the clouds of Colorado are much more egalitarian than that. They'll pose for anyone with a halfway decent digital camera.   I took these while we were driving up to the summit.  The clouds (not to mention the hills) were just begging me to take their pictures. 

 This is a panorama from one of the highest points in the park.  Isn't it breathtaking? 

And lest anyone think that these skyscapes are a fluke of Colorado, I caught these clouds performing in Wyoming . . .

(Spiral cloud dancing.  Isn't it fantastic?)

 and these on the Idaho border.



I half seriously thought about pulling a Chesterton and writing a book in response to the challenge.  Weather in America, a book primarily in pictures.  Can you imagine a book of photos and essays about the signature weather patterns of all the regions of North America?  Really good photos, not just snapshots like mine.  I say we ought to find a way to make it happen.  How do we go about it?