Winter

A note about the weather, which was of such concern to me before we left. Most of the time we didn't know how cold we were, temperatures being Fahrenheit over there (although I do have one of those converter thingies in my phone), but the basic gist of it was: not very. We had one slightly horrifying morning in New York, our second or third day in the country, when we stepped out in 19 degrees F (-7 C) - the first time in my life I have experienced cold that is literally painful.
A certain person also was not terribly happy about the number of layers he was required to wear from day to day - so many in fact that he didn't quite bend in the middle.
We played and drove in the snow:

And Jerry's snow-bootless feet nearly blackened and fell off on our winter-wonderland day in Yosemite, which was otherwise fine and clear.But overall we were incredibly lucky - we had the right clothes, the weather never spoiled our sightseeing (one woman told us that on her first glimpse of the Grand Canyon, it was full to the brim of fog) and from all reports, bad weather chased us around the country, but never caught up to us.