South Dakota, where the wind blows you over

Have you ever been sleeping peacefully when all the sudden, you wake with a start because you hear howling wind tearing at your home? It threatens to rent your home as a twig snaps under the footstep of a 300 pound man. The twig and your home are helpless and completely at the mercy of the forces around them. You lie there, hearing mother nature rip her fury across the deserted landscape. Tomorrow will bring all kinds of problems as the wind deposits random articles in your lawn and covers the ground with a morbid and beautiful powdering of snow. As the wind continues to howl, you drift back to a fitful and unfulfilling sleep, daunted by the prospect of shoveling those drifts the next morning.

You wake up again to the wind pounding against your window. The sun is up, casting a misleading air of happy splendor. You lie in bed for just a few minutes more, not wanting to get up and don the necessary articles of clothing for the tundra you inhabit. For, once you are ready in your gear, you must trudge through the drifts (after successfully heaving the door open) and remove the frozen moisture from your driveway.

Finally, you pull yourself up and look out the window to assess the damage. The sun shines down on a green and cheerful landscape. There is no snow at all, for it is the middle of May, when the days reach a scorching 90+ and the sun burns the vulnerable skin so carefully hidden throughout the winter. The teasing blizzard-like winds blow the patio furniture off the deck, and push the grill against the railing. Well, there no doubt still lay in your yard foreign objects belonging to your neighbors, but the weather has fooled you. Happy summer, it says. Oh, South Dakota.