Swimming through winter

I saw the article in the most recent, "USMS Swimmer," magazine about swimming through winter. The first thought that went through my head is that these folks swim inside. Once you get to the pool, you have nice warm facilities, no rain on you while swimming, etc. Here in the Phoenix area, we swim outside year-round. The pools my team uses are heated, but getting to/from the locker room is sometimes painful. If it is raining, you can feel it falling on you while swimming. Then I went to Flagstaff for work Wed-Thurs. I had gone there last July, and took my swimming bag, got in a great workout at the NAU pool. This is a fantastic facility, some olympians train there for the high altitude. So I brought my bag with me again, thinking I'd get in a swim at least after I got there at night, maybe with the masters team the next morning. My drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff was uneventful until about 20 miles out. There was a flashing sign on the side of the road, "Winter weather ahead." Ok, at this point it was cold out (40ish), but dry. Slowly, I started to notice patches of snow on the sides of the freeway and thought how nice it looked. As the elevation went up, the temperature dropped, and eventually these patches got bigger and grew together until it was all snow. Then it was snowing on the road. Now I grew up in PA, but hadn't driven in snow for years. After crawling along the freeway for 30 minutes, my rental car slid into a spot in the hotel parking lot, where it stayed until the next morning. I had wanted to eat at a place in downtown Flag, but didn't want to drive, so opted for walking to Sizzler instead (big mistake). My swim bag stayed in the car. When I did finally get out the next morning, I had to brush snow from the car, wait for the defrost to kick in to get rid of ice, then had to drive very creatively. So for those of you who have to put up with this everyday, what keeps you heading out, especially for early morning workouts? How much earlier do you have to get up to deal with all of this? When I'm at home, I pull my car out of the garage at 5:30, park at 5:50, and have plenty of time to spare for the 6 am workout, without the hassles of winter. I can say this, even just 1 day of the winter weather makes me appreciate living in the desert.