50 below? We're not in California anymore.

The day before my mom and I were to leave balmy California, the dogsledding trip suddenly struck me as insane. I called the Wintergreen Lodge to double-check that the extra-warm parkas I'd reserved would be ready. "And how's the weather?" I asked.

"Oh, it's warm enough for January," chirped the Minnesota woman. "It's 1."

One? One degree?

"Yah, I'm not even wearing a hat today," she sang out in her cheerful, "Fargo"-ish accent. "Yesterday was really cold, though," she said. "Minus 50."

Minus 50? A full 100 degrees colder than it was in my garage?

Last summer, it hadn't seemed like such a loony idea. We had flipped through the brochures in my sweltering California backyard. From the pages smiled apple-cheeked people petting fluffy, snowy dogs.

"This is going to be so cool, Mom" I said, checking out the glistening icicles. "More lemonade?"

"You're fortunate," my best friend said when I mentioned taking the trip with my mother. Her mom had trouble just getting through a game of golf.

I didn't think much about it until Christmastime, and I finally realized we were going to the coldest spot in the continental US in mid-January. What had we been thinking?

I flipped through a winter-clothing catalog. Sorel caribou boots, rated to minus 40. I ordered a pair for each of us.

"I need the warmest gloves you have," I said to the guy at the camping store.

"Sure," he answered. "Headed to Tahoe?"

"Nope. Minnesota."

He stopped rummaging through the box of mittens. "Why?"

Good question.

"Dogsledding," I said. "With my mom."

He stared at me for a second. "Try these." He grabbed a package of Hot Hands, little chemical patches you slip into your gloves. I dumped the whole box into my basket.

* * *

"Nice day out there, folks," the pilot said as we taxied along the tarmac. "It's 6 degrees."

In the tiny airport, I saw things I'd never seen in California: a moose head hung over the drinking fountain. Past the security checkpoint, a stuffed grizzly bear pawed the air with its club-sized foot.

"You the folks from California?" a woman in a fur-lined, camouflage parka asked.

I nodded.

"Okey-dokey, then. I'm Wanda." She motioned toward the taxi purring at the curb. "So, you guys ever seen snow before?"

We filed out into the icy afternoon, the low winter sun glinting across the slick highway. We sped past iron mines, a store called Chocolate Moose, and a town called Embarrass. Flakes fuzzed the windows while Wanda passed back pictures of her grandkids. She asked if we'd ever felt an earthquake.

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