Just curious.

Where did you experience the coldest temperature or, surprised to learn that a destination would get so cold?

And, what's you're favorite potion for numbing your winter-numbed toes (i.e., hot toddies)?

Shhh...I'm stealing this thread idea from Statia for 'Hot Temps and Poison'.

Ice caves in Austria, then again, not sure whether it is Alaska. Of course, both places did not take us by surprise!!

Home, i.e. Minnesota. I once left on a canoe trip in northeast Minnesota while flurries were floating down through the dawn sky.

It was July 5.

Ft. Kent, Maine

Back in the days when I was a California girl, I spent a week in Seattle, Washington, over New Years.
I have never been so cold. brrrrrrr~

Cripple Creek, Colorado (2-mile high elevation) in the middle of December. There were icicles on the car exhaust in the morning. Brrrr!

Coldest place I've ever been was in February skiing at Grey Rocks in Quebec. I couldn't stand to be outside, but my kids continued to ski. They had to have insulated gloves under ski gloves and faces completely covered.

Riding the chairlift to the summit at Jay Peak Ski Resort in Vermont during what felt like a blizzard! But, not so bad a little while later, when I headed straight for the lodge to get a steaming cup of hot cocoa with LOTS of peppermint schapps!! ummm,ummm, good!!!

Marmora Ontario at 20 below. We had a rented car and the automatic door locks locked when my husband left it running to warm up. We were staying at a small hotel and the owner took a picture of us when Canada's version of AAA unlocked the car for us. Of course, that weather is like we have at home in NH. When it's that cold, the gatorade you have in your pocket turns to slush. You get used to it. I've had a neighbor in his shirt sleeves stop to talk to me at the local store. A friend who lives near Fairbanks showed us a handmade beaver hat that according to him is so warm that he never wears it unless it's at least 30 or 40 degrees below zero. The best ever warm drink we had after a day outdoors in the cold was hot rum and cider. Yum! It doesn't taste that good unless you've been out in the cold. One of our secrets to surving a cold winter is a heated garage under the house. It's awful to get into a cold car for my commute home at night.

Coldest temp I recall is the -34F here at home. The coldest I remember feeling was at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville Florida about 20 years ago. The game was at night and the temperature at kickoff was 12F. Since we were traveling to Florida, we weren't as well prepared for those temps as we would have been at home. And there was no where to go. We had to stay at the game. If that happened now, I would have found a way to get a cab and headed back to the hotel. But, we were younger and not as wise.

Sitting on a ski lift in Colorado or Utah with falling snow and a blowing wind....brrrrh!!! I'll take it over a day-o-heat any day!

The coldest temp i have been in was about -40C in Grande Prairie Alberta and Quebec city with a wind chill of about -40c was also equally freezing and really uncomfortable.

For me it was a wedding in Michigan in January 2003...even the locals kept saying it was the coldest winter in a long time...I just remember trying to go outside and enjoy the beauty and snow and within minutes feeling like I was in pain

The Greenland Ice Cap in early January! I don't know what the temperature was, but "in town", at the Kangerlussuaq airport, the thermometer always was reading about -35 C. It was much colder and windy at the Ice Cap.

The coldest place in the US I've been to was Malone, NY on the northside of the Adirondacks.

Either Scotland in February or the time we tried to go skiing in Vermont but they had to close due to the extreme cold weather. Scotland was more fun though, lol!

San Francisco: September 1975.
M

North Korea

Around -50F in the Fairbanks area.

Worktowander, I had about the same experience on a five day canoe trip in NE Minnesota. It snowed and rained for the first four days. Camped in cold tents and had no dry wood for fires, no roads, no cell phones, no whining. Just carry that canoe from lake to lake and shut up.

But the coldest has to be walking to the end of my eighth mile drive way to get the mail one time at below zero with 30 mph wind in a blizzard.

As for favorite potion, a nice glass of wine to warm up. On that canoe trip it was a nice cup of ice water from the lakes!

Lived in central Iowa for fourteen years. Just about every winter featured a day (or days!) when the temperature never got above zero Fahrenheit. Spent three days in Iowa City when the temperature never got above ten below, I felt cold in the motel room underneath a blanket, my car wouldn't start, and the only way I could get a jump start was to ask at 5 am. AAA was no help since I was from out of town!!