Escaping the Brutal Winter of 2013/2014

One of my favourite words is brutal. A related form of the word is brutalized and that is what has happened to North Americans this winter. We have been brutalized by one horrific winter storm after another. Did you know that they name winter storms now? Here we are in early March and Winter Storm Titan is brutalizing North America. Titan starts with a "T". That means since storm names follow the alphabet, we are on storm number 20 of the 2013/14 winter. All I can say is that it's time to get the heck out of Dodge. We are not waiting around for Ulysses.

When escaping winter it is advisable for those of us from the Northern Hemisphere to go south. Odds are you can escape the Polar Vortex by heading away from the North Pole. And to be on the safe side why not go all the way? Cross the equator when it's winter in North America and you enter a whole new hemisphere that is experiencing summer. What a wonderful concept.

It just so happens that Mrs. Gym and I have another reason for setting an almost direct southerly route out of winter this year and that is because we fell in love with South America last year. So we are off to explore some more of that fascinating continent tomorrow afternoon. Our trip this year will take us to the south-east coast of South America and will have us spending some time in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

On this trip and in no particular order of preference we hope to get up close and personal with the following items:

• Christ the Redeemer
• Iguazu Falls
• Samba
• The sport of Polo 
• Brazil's best beaches
• Argentinian beef
• Capybaras, the world's largest rodents
• The Pope's neighborhood

Follow along the next couple of weeks and see if we find all of these items.