Column: Cache Valley in February is kind of the worst

Dear Cache Valley,

It’s that special time of year when we get all mushy over the ones we love, but so often we forget in our infatuation the setting in which that love blossoms. Consider this letter an appreciative gesture to the greater Cache Valley area, from all of us fortunate enough to live within its paradisiacal climes.

What a wondrous place, to still boast the reputation of a quaint college town despite ballooning to a population unable to comfortably move about its roadways. Wintertime in Logan is the definition of the sublime — a beautiful place posing the occasional dangers of clueless out-of-state speedsters tearing through icy streets, drivers who can’t properly navigate a roundabout, and air as thick as it is poisonous. Students at the university ponder daily the mystery of whether their pounding headaches are a result of the physical exertion of a 15-minute walk directly up Old Main Hill from the nearest 3-hour parking spot, or simply the toxic oxygen bursting its way into the bloodstream.

The inversion, built by thousands of unnecessarily idling vehicles waiting to pick up wives from mutual activities and husbands from soccer practice, provides an almost veil-like atmosphere around the Eden-esque valley, one to be gloriously lifted as the climate approaches balmy above-freezing temperatures sometime in April signaling the first days of spring. Soon the city will come alive with movement throughout the one sort-of-okay mall and both the north and south Walmarts. The absence of any semblance of downtown culture will sneakily survive undetected until May, when half the town’s population departs for the warmer months while the city pretends like its lack of interesting restaurants has everything to do with summer break. But that’s okay! Don’t feel bad — Ice cream and donut shops still abound, and all the halfway-decent burger joints will eagerly employ the few unlucky students who actually have to work to pay tuition instead of “studying” abroad in Switzerland.

The road reconstruction projects will begin again, an unintentional gift forcing summer residents of Logan to forge alternative paths toward their destination and drinking in the valley’s scenic grid patterned avenues. The snow-cone stands will reopen, and the annual rumors of a new Target will surface only to be met with the unceremonious folding of Hastings and other beloved storefronts. In a way, the tenuous nature of all things good in Cache Valley teaches us not to take those things for granted. We still have Charlie’s, and Big 5, and Costa Vida.

But for now, the town remains a tranquil place. It’s still, silent evenings are disturbed only by the sharp cries of pain from recently broken wrists suffered on impossibly slick sidewalks, left uncleared for reasons unknown.

Thanks for all that you are, Cache Valley.