WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Weathering the Four Seasons

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they share some distinct memories that encompass the four seasons in their minds. 

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. Howdy, campers. What's your name? Oh yeah, that's right. I'm Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Seguer Tau, and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week, we're going to reminisce on some moments that encapsulates specific seasons in our minds, because currently it is very spring-like in Hillsdale. So I was just thinking about all the seasons and how wonderful they are. I'm thinking about season three of community. I have not seen that show. But we're not talking about TV shows. I was talking about like weather seasons. Oh, Casey didn't pick up on that.

We are an outdoor podcast. Oh yeah, that's right. Okay, weather seasons? Yeah. There's at least three of those. At least three. I know that for sure. Maybe another one.

I'd be hard pressed to remember it though. Storm, do you have a trail marker from this week? Yeah, my trail marker is that it finally feels here at Hillsdale, Michigan, like it feels at home. And I'm happy about that. I walked outside yesterday and it was 78 degrees. It was toasty yesterday. Well, see, that's like normal for me back home. Okay.

I mean toasty for Hillsdale. Yeah, it was toasty for here. But I walked outside and I was like, this is a regular early spring, late autumn day. Yeah. I was like, this is gorgeous. Back home in Georgia. And I was like, this is great. So my trail marker is that I'm happy now for the first time ever.

Julie has entered into my heart. I'm so glad you're back and you're not depressed. I'm so back. How about you? You got a trail marker? Yeah, yesterday I went to the lake and I don't only went to the lake. I went in the lake. Inside the lake?

Inside Bobby's Lake. That's cool. Yeah. And the water, I will say, was pretty chilly. But because it was like 80 degrees yesterday and the sun was shining, it felt really refreshing and it was so nice to just be in a body of water again. that's not a pool. One of my stories is about Bobby's Lake. Oh, really? Can you guess which season? Probably. Okay, so technically we're not here in Hillsdale in the summer, but like early fall maybe.

I'll tell you. Do you want to know? Wait, wait, can we start? Yeah, let's start. Just go for it. Okay, so my first story is wintertime. Oh, no. Wintertime. One of my core wintertime memories is you and me and two of our friends out on Bobby's Lake when it was all the way frozen over. Oh my gosh. Yes. And we walked out onto the lake and there was like a layer of like frosty snow over the thick ice and we like drew funny shapes with our feet and like made words. Yes. And like rode into his names on the lake and stuff like that like signed the lake and jumped around on it. And one of my best friends, she jumped really hard on the ice. And it made like this or I don't know if it was her or someone else but it made this long like crack that like ran all the way across the lake. And we like were like, whoa. And she was a little too far out to the point where if she had jumped any harder and like fell through the ice, we'd be in a bit of a pickle. Yeah, Luke and I would have saved her.

But I would just have to be like, go guys. You got it. Yeah, but that's a kind of a core memory of mine. We drew some funny stuff. We laughed. We had a good time. I liked the, I had never been out really on a frozen lake like that before. So.

Yeah. I haven't. I haven't really either. The only other time I can think of like being out on a frozen lake was we have a little. little lake here called Winona Lake. And there's an island in the middle. And so Mara and I, we walked across to the island. But actually, I think about it, that was after this story that you just mentioned.

Yeah, that would have been, that would have been in like January. Yeah, it was later in January. That was early January. Yeah, right when we got back. It was in the negatives that day. It was very chilly. And I just remember looking at the sky and it was so clear. Like just no air part of it.

I mean, there was air particles. No air particles. A vacuum. Yeah, it was just, but there was just nothing in the air. It was so cold and frigid that everything had frozen out of it. What? Do you know what I mean? I have no idea you're talking about.

What do you mean? Like, it was like higher altitude air, like thinner air. Yeah, there was no dust in the air. There was no pollen in the air, obviously. But like, everything was sucked out by the cold. That spring. I'm not. Should I do all four of my stories or do we want to go back and forth?

No, we should alternate. Okay, do you want to do winter or do you have another one? I'll do winter. Let's go. Yeah. My winter story is definitely a skiing story. And this was in Mammoth. We typically go to Steamboat or, yeah, we've always been there every year.

But it was one of our first time skiing in Mammoth. And Mammoth is a real mountain. It's up in the Sierras and it's not a little hill like Steamboat is. and it was blizzarding, and I had never been skiing in as serious of a blizzard as it was up there. Super windy, like 30, 40 mile an hour wind, so most of the lifts were closed on the mountain. And because of that, my mom, dad and I, we were on this tiny little lift kind of lowered down. They were able to keep it running because it was nestled between trees. And so you weren't like getting slung around by the wind.

but I just remember being so incredibly bitterly cold and miserable. And I was like, dang, this is not fun. Like, that was one of my worst experiences skiing. But in my brain is just so purely winter because we like, we went inside afterwards. And my parents bought me a hot chocolate. And like, we never, we never buy anything like when we go places. But it was so cool that they bought me a hot chocolate to warm up. And I was like, man, this is a real.

storm like it's cold you can freeze out there and die but i should have expected a skiing for winter a skiing story for winter yeah what else would be great i i think winter winter is not the worst season wait what's the worst it's other winter or spring see i love spring so much should we go straight in spring sure do you want to go first though yeah my spring story is my smallest one. I just have a core memory growing up of every spring the, oh my god, what are they called? The yellow flowers.

Not the daffodils. Like little weeds? No, no, like the bright yellow big flowers. Oh, big flowers. Maybe they're a daffodils. No, they're not. We have daffodils here. And they're also not tulips. They're the other one. We had this one big patch of them in the backyard and every every year growing up without

fail, my mom, as soon as they bloom to be like, it's officially spring. So I have, I don't attach the beginning of, um, I attach the beginning of other seasons to like specific days or events or like times. But spring, it's whenever those flowers in the backyard bloom. I think that's a very fair way to evaluate the start of spring because especially over here, we had a late spring in comparison to last year. Like things really only started blooming this past weekend. Like full bloom. And I would say in my brain, that's when spring started.

Like we were in a, we were in winter still, but we were like, Like in a knockoff spring before. It was the groundhog's fault, I'm sure. Absolutely. And then my dad would, uh, every spring, all the carpenter bees would pull up. Do you guys have that problem where you're from? We don't know. We have tons of them.

They're giant bees, but they don't, they're not like, they don't sting you or anything. They just like drill and bore holes into wood, which makes them obnoxious. Oh, you know what? I've heard about this. Yeah. They, they can bite, but it's rare. They're not really dangerous at all. They're kind of, bite or sting?

They're just, they're big old fat junkie or bees. who just buzz around lazily and then bore into holes and they're annoying because they make little holes everywhere in like your house and your fence and stuff so my dad would

we have like little like tennis rackets and my dad would be like if you for every bee you confirmed confirmed kill I'll give you like a nickel or something dang you guys were really making the big bucks running around swinging tennis rackets in the backyard trying to like kill carpenter bees

and get like I got I got 20 bees today that's a dollar yeah then you could use that dollar and go to the ice cream truck. You could buy ice cream for a dollar. Oh, when I was growing up, the ice cream truck would come by, and you could buy a popsicle or a little ice cream bar for like two bucks maximum, usually a dollar, 75 cents.

Crazy. So I remember... When I was six years old or whatever. Like my mom telling me that when she was growing up, popsicles were at 10 cents or whatever, but like... By my time, it was like a dollar. In California, I don't know. I only ever think I had ice cream from an ice cream truck once.

And I was like very little. What? Did you not have one come by your street? No, not really. Where we used to live, we moved when I was five. So where we used to live, there was an ice cream truck that would come by. And remember, that's the one time we got it. But I don't know, California ice cream, they were so expensive that we always just get it in like a tub or whatever.

Yeah, that makes sense. Get it out of that. Book by. Do you have a spring story? I do. And I'm just going to elaborate as to why I think spring is my favorite season. I always kind of change it. Spring might be the worst.

Paulin's so bad. I don't get out. though. Oh, you're just in the clear then. I am in the clear. But I think spring is my favorite, at least in California, because it's not overly hot. It's like 70s, beautiful weather. We don't have the marine layer fog coming in yet because that doesn't really start until

May and our spring in California is like, I mean, depends on how late the rainy season is, but typically spring is like March, April, early May, and we won't get May. gray, which is when all the fog comes in until later. May gray. And then we have June gloom, which is, oh, that's worse. Oh, we have a great. Okay, we'll get to that. But anyway, so it's in the 70s, so it's beautiful and sunny. Days are getting longer, like especially once you get past daylight savings time. That makes a huge difference.

And then I honestly love the end of the school year, at least in high school. That was, like, my favorite time of school. It was just fantastic. And the other thing is, like, you can still go skiing in Mammoth. But it's a lot warmer. It's not. freezing cold in the wintertime, but you still get really great snow. Days are longer so you can do stuff after skiing. You can go for a little hike. When you wake up in the morning, it's not dark and cold. So I think, at least in California, spring is probably my favorite season, because we don't really have much of a fall. Our fall is pretty pathetic. Winter is just like, meh, whatever. Obviously, summer is great for the beach, but like everything dies in the summer

where I live. It's all brown. Spring is beautiful because all our hillsides are green, like the sound of music. But anyway, as for like a specific spring memory. Yeah, stop yapping. Geez. Sorry. I would say mine would be hiking up saddleback, which is a mountain kind of in the distance from us with my dad and my dog. And we have these flowers called mustard flowers. They're really just a bunch of weeds. Mustard flowers. They're yellow. Mustard. Little like little tiny blooms, but they grow in these huge swaths. And so then the whole hillside is all. yellow and it's absolutely beautiful and it was just a really great hike um we have like desert flowers little tiny ones they're so cute little orange ones we also get poppies further north uh than where i

live in california i haven't really been up there but our state flower is the california poppy so they're popular ha ha ha so funny but dude yellow is such a good color yellow is a heavily underrated i used to think yellow was ugly and i'm like wow it's gorgeous Yellow is top three for me now. Yeah, I would say top three as well, green, blue, yellow. I think I agree. Maybe I'd replace green with purple. I like purple a lot.

See, I just love green. Green is just beautiful. I think they're all beautiful. I've learned to appreciate a wider variety of things entering my eyeballs. And you know what? I used to hate orange, but now I'm like, orange is not that. Okay, orange is still not as good. Natural orange.

So good. Sky orange. Yes. Sky orange sunsets. like orange leaves not i don't like artificial orange but natural oranges speaking of orange i think we should get into the best season objectively fall we should but first you're listening to off the trails on radio free hillsdale 101.7 fm fall is goaded guys i think that i get the you don't have that much of a fall in california we have a pretty good one in georgia not as long as i'd like it to be

it's great up here it looks nicer up here but um for fall um my core memory is like really involves the colors we get towards late fall, especially in like November. There is these like trees that turn bright yellow and only go yellow, like a gold yellow almost. I think they're like Inca trees. I've never heard of those. Or like ginkos. Ginkos. Yeah, that one.

Gink, okay, I have her. I do know you're talking about. Those are beautiful. They're awesome. There's a row of them like a couple of blocks away from where I grew up. and they're awesome. They turn bright yellow gold. And they always do it around early November, which is near my birthday.

And also growing up, my mom would always say, look, the trees are celebrating your birthday. Oh, that's so cute. And they would turn yellow gold and I'd be like, wow. So I love that. I love fall. I think that my favorite weather is like middle of 60 degrees, like 65 degrees. Okay. A couple episodes ago, you're saying 70 is where it's at.

70 is where it's at most of the time. But I don't know. when it's, I do like the like just starting to get in the sweater weather, but not quite. Yeah, solid 67, 69 is just elite. And fall has like the prettiest colors up in the Georgia mountains and then the lower Appalachian Mountains. There are some fire spots where if you do a hike in the fall, you can just look out across roving hills and low mountains that just have splotches of red, orange, still like sections of green, yellow, just all the things. And it's like, this is where it's at. So I don't know.

I think weather-wise fall, and also like, fall semester is just the better semester of school. Fall semester is really great. Spring, okay. Spring is the worst in school-wise. Hear me out. Hear me out. Fall, like, on the whole, is fantastic. You got home coming.

Like, like, all of it is really good. However, the last three to four weeks of spring semester are in another level. But because the first, because the first, because. last? They're terrible. No, no, no, because the weather is gorgeous and everyone is so... Yes. Yes. No, for me, okay. April is like one of the worst months. You're so wrong. Here, this is okay. Like I said, fall is genuinely good. It's generally witty. Fall is generally good. Spring is terrible up until it's really, really spring, like spring semester. Yeah. But then the last three to four weeks are so good. It makes up for the rest of it. Well, it's nice out now, but it's. It's nice out now, but it's

someone's over. This is like, we're basically in the month of May right now. We have five, six days, six days till May. That's basically May. Basically May. April, it's all, it's the phrase April showers. Bring May flowers. Yeah, so May better than April, like definitively. It depends where you are. That's true. But now I get what you're saying. But yeah, no, something about fall. Something about like October breeze. Okay, I do have a great fall story. Like I can commiserate with you. So even though in Southern California, we don't get much of a fall. If you go up through the Sierras to where all the aspen trees are, those turn beautiful colors in the fall. And so my dad and I will sometimes go up

to Bishop, which is a little town along the 395, the Owens Valley looking over towards the Syras. And if you go to Bishop, you can drive up to North Lake, Lake, Lake Sabriana, and these hillsides are just covered in aspen trees, and they turn all yellow and orange and red. And I actually went this fall for my birthday, but that's not the story I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of a few years prior to that. When you were at Lake Sabrana? Yes. I called it. Do they have a lot of, do they have a large woodworking industry there? They do not. Really? I'd expect it to be able to check carpenters. No. At Lakes of Rina. Oh, I see what you're saying. It took me a while. No, but anyway, so my dad and I, this is a junior year of high school, my dad and I were up there and all the trees were just so beautiful, like peak colors.

And as we were taking pictures, it started to lightly snow. So then you got this contrast of like white with the orange and the yellow and the red. And there were still like a couple green plants around. You just had all the colors. And it was so, so beautiful. and in my brain that was just like the epitome of fall. It made me think of in Frozen 2 because technically I think that's supposed to be set in the fall. I haven't seen Frozen 2.

You shouldn't watch it. However, there's like they go through this forest and that's all orangey and like snow's falling. It made me think of that. And in my brain those are very fall moments. So I do also really enjoy fall and like you get you're kind of get surprised by the weather. You don't know what's going to happen. Is it going to snow? is it going to be 70 degrees?

Because when we went this past September up to Lake Sabrina, it was really toasty. It was 70 and it was sunny and it was beautiful and like still great fall colors. But it's just so different when it's lightly snowing and it's like in the 30s. Totally different vibe. I think fall is funny like astrologically because if it like it's basically everything dying because we're getting too far from the sun. And like if it kept going and like if winter kept like if the earth kept curving. and tilting on that axis away from the sun. Eternal winter, everything just dies.

Every, yeah, that'd be really sad. There's the sun again. Well, thank goodness we have summer right around the corner. Summer is goaded, guys. Summer is in the running. Summer's second place, but it's in the running to be the greatest season ever. In my opinion. I love it when it's hot.

I love it when there's no school. I love it when it's just a blast out. I love Finney's and Ferb. My childhood cartoon. The epitome of summer. Okay, I now do have a special place in my heart for Phineas and Furb. Yeah, I introduced you to Finnis and Furb, Jones and I did. Yeah.

And great TV show. If you haven't seen Phineas and Furb, go watch it. You actually should. Like, I can't watch more than two episodes at once, but like... Because she gets so still. Yeah, I can't sit still. But the theme song is really funny. I like the other songs.

They'll just pop into my head randomly. There's a great song in... This is actually about summer. That's a good song. But there's a great song in the movie. where they talk about summer and they're introducing their like alternate dimension counterparts who have never seen summer to summer and they seem this little song with like summer every single moment's worth its weight in gold.

Aw, that's cute. It's like the world's best story and it's waiting to be told. It's a really sweet little song. But it gets at the heart of what it means. Summer is possibility. Summer rocks. That's true. So what's your specific summer memory?

My summer memory that encapsulates summer for me is lake time. There's a lot of lakes, surprisingly, in North Georgia, and my grandparents have a, they live up near one such lake. And we used to go up there all the time as kids. And summer wouldn't be summer without one trip up to Lake Burton in the Southern Appalachians in North Georgia. Jump in that water. It's always great in summer. Like the water is like warm. It's like awesome.

But just also cool enough and different enough to cool you off. Tubing, water skiing, wakeboarding. I love tubing. Oh, Lord. This is the summer encapsulation. Get out sandwiches and chips and ice cream. That sounds so good. It's just the perfect, like, nothing beats it.

Get a blast some old country tunes from a JBL speaker, the whole family around. It's just, that's like one of my happy places. That sounds so awesome. Now, I want to be there right now. Yeah. So in my brain, you should come visit. I should. That'd be so fun.

In my brain, summer has two different vibes. you have like beach summer and then you have mountain summer at least for me and i'm going to tell a beach summer story because i have california i'm yeah and uh my beach summer memory it just such a random day but it was like a school day i guess it was probably like a thursday friday i didn't have school obviously but i went to swim practice and it was just a really really great swim practice like summer swim practices are always so fun because once you're past jo's you're not really training for anything, you're just kind of maintaining for the fall and then you start building up again. And so it was a nice chill swim practice.

Like all of my friends were there. It was so, so great. And swim is over and we all go to in and out together, which is like a big thing in California. And so we all went. We got burgers and fries and milkshakes. I remember my In-N-Out experience when I was out west. And I liked it. It is good.

I love their sauce. It's really good. And so we all get in and out. And then we all went to the beach together. and our swim team loves to play Ultimate Frisbee. Like, we were so good. We just, we had our partners and we were just really good. We were like on the same wavelength, knew what each other was going to do.

And so we went and we played Ultimate Frisbee and like some of the guys were surfing. And then us girls, like, we went in the water and we swam around. And the sun was just like setting over the ocean. And I remember thinking, this is the epitome of summer. Like it doesn't get better than this. And I had my driver's license, obviously, because like, I don't know, we were old enough at that point. And then I remember like driving home and I just had my summer playlist going like windows rolled down like in the car in my swimsuit. It was just so good.

Maybe summer is the best season because you just described my other happy place. Exactly. The beach is like I said. Those are the two best places in the world is mountain and beach. Yeah, mountain and beach. And like in the summer they're both equally just phenomenal. Yep. Beach good.

Speaking of summer, we are coming up on summer, which means that this podcast is going to sound a little different for the next. four weeks. I'm going to be doing a summer session here. So I'm going to continue on recording. They're cutting my part, guys. Yeah, we're cutting Storm. He's been slacking. Please send in, send in money. We need money. No, we don't. We're fine. But yeah, I'll be here for the first summer session. So I'm going to try to continue on with the podcast. I'll be back. In the fall. In the fall, a great season. Yeah. It's coming up. I'm going to go enjoy summer and not worry about trail markers for three months. That'll be. nice. Yeah, it's going to be good. I'll see you guys then. Yeah, anyway, thank you so much for listening to

us this spring, and thank you for listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We'll see you out there. Happy trails. Happy summer, folks. Bye, guys.