This time, down through Normal, Illinois, from high up in white Minnesota, dead of winter, icy roads, wind blowing sideways across the empty cornfields.
"I feel real good about where I'm at, " said White, a sinkerball pitcher acquired in a winter trade from Colorado.
But that was long before the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver turned White into a worldwide brand.
With the 20th-century boom in winter sports, the unloved blankets of snow that stifled the Walser each winter suddenly became white gold, and villages such as Davos, Klosters and Lech grew into famous ski resorts.
Although they now have a friend in the White House, the cold economy and cold winter will cool public ardor for global warming initiatives.
Many Alaskans revel in the biting air and the pure white of the winter landscape, not to mention the skiing, ice-climbing and snow machine-riding.
Combined with the retirement of Lance Armstrong, the diminished reputation of Tiger Woods, and the fading of interest in 2010 winter Olympians like Apolo Anton Ohno and Shaun White, the mini-rally has launched three Nascar drivers into the ranks of the most influential athletes.
But while the winter months are dark, treacherous and shrouded in a white uniform of snow, summer brings with it the chance to see this part of the world in all its green grassy goodness.
Brown and sturdy, their antlers silhouetted against the white, the reindeer clear away the snow to reach the food they rely on in winter: lichen.
Imagine the heat in the summer, the bitter cold in the winter, and Mandela going out to quarry stone, the burning white light reflecting off the limestone permanently and deeply injuring his sight.
In 2009, Red Bull built a secret, one-of-a-kind superpipe in Silverton, Colorado so then-sponsored snowboarder Shaun White could prepare for the Vancouver Winter Olympics (White is no longer with Red Bull after leaving the brand last year).
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And it's also striking considering that, elsewhere in the United States, this past winter was known more for its warmth than its white stuff.
The moors that winter were often under a crust of snow not enough to blanket them in white, but a mean, dirty frosting on the hard earth and wilted shrubs.
Last winter was one of the best ski seasons in history, with excellent snow conditions almost everywhere the white stuff can be found in the United States.
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