In the vicinity of 43

Goodbye, sunshine!

Two days ago I was walking barefoot on the beach, but this morning I'm bundled up in a warm robe and fuzzy slippers while sipping hot tea and wondering where I stashed my winter gloves. The thermometer tells me it's 10 degrees outside this morning, which is as good a reason as any to stay inside. 

We spent most of yesterday in the land of 43: the temperature dipped to 43 degrees as we left Florida and stayed there all through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, finally falling below 43 just as we got into Virginia and falling faster all the way home. Fourteen hours from the beach to the frozen tundra, about three-quarters of it spent in the vicinity of 43.

(Why not 42? I'd like to spend time in the vicinity of the Answer to the Ultimate Question, even I don't know what the Question is. Forty-three, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be the answer to anything except "How cold was it along I-77 in North Carolina yesterday?")

Now we're back to the territory of 10, where today's tasks will have to include unpacking, doing laundry, going through the mail, paying bills, buying groceries, and getting the house back to some semblance of normalcy. Also cleaning sand out of my car, although I'm not in a huge hurry to get rid of reminders of our tropical idyll. 

Tomorrow I go to campus to do absolutely everything necessary to get classes off to a good start next Monday. At some point I'll want to post a few more vacation photos and ruminate about my New Year's Resolutions and my upcoming 10-year blogiversary, but today I'm staring at the suitcases and laundry bags piled on the living-room floor and wondering whether they somehow multiplied while we weren't looking. 

How many bags must I unpack? (If the answer is 43, I don't want to know about it.)