Blizzard Postscript: Good news, bad news

The modern cavalry is yellow and has headlights.

But life remains interesting.

The Blizzard of 2013

The beautiful snowy woods trail above is ... the road we live on, after the blizzard.  Our mailbox is barely sticking its head out.

Two-and-a-half feet of snow fell Friday and Saturday -- some parts of Connecticut got even more!  I have been a little under the weather (I guess all of us have been under this weather) but the amazing thick blanket of snow looked like too much fun for me to stay inside all day.  We first tried going outside in our boots, but the snow was too high to be able to walk.

So we put on our cross country skis and ventured first down the road, then through the woods.

Where the trees still held leaves, there were dappled patters on the snow.

There is a big boulder under this pile of snow (it's called "Sarah's rock") leaving the tree's shadow beautifully altered.

The photo below on the left shows Amy virtuously using the roof rake to pull piles of snow off the roof.  The photo on the right shows her reward.

There is  some water coming in the house, but a lot less than if Amy had not worked so hard to clear the lower part of the roof.

In the late afternoon, the slanted light cast beautiful long tree-shadows.

36 hours after the end of the road, we are still not plowed out.  Perhaps tomorrow ?

Inversion As Seen From the Mountaintop

Amy, Sarah and I spent an extended weekend downhill skiing in Vermont with Amy's parents.  Amy's Dad Klaus is amazing - at 82 years old he still skis down the mountain with little visible effort. And Amy and Sarah zip down the hill quite elegantly.

We had beautiful weather at first. It was cold enough for the snow to be easily skied on, but not so cold that our fingers, toes or noses complained.

Then it rained overnight, and the weather changed.  We woke up the next morning in a dense fog.  Skiing is hard in the fog.  You no longer have a visual sense of the trails.  You have trouble finding the people you are skiing with.  And in the dim flat light, it's hard to see where the bumps or icy spots on the trail are.

But amazingly, as we took a second lift higher up the mountain, the sun broke through, and we were surrounded by clear weather. It was a weather inversion, warmer and clearer at the top than at the bottom of the mountain.  As we looked down the ski trail, a sea of fog stretched out below us, with occasional mountain tops sticking out.  It was like the view from an airplane at 30,000 feet (fortunately we were only at 3,300 feet).

As we skied down the hill, we could see the fog ahead of us.  (Yes, that red dot is Amy's Dad.) We took the lifts up from the middle of the mountain, rather than skiing the whole hill, to minimize our time in the fog.

The skiing wasn't as nice as the earlier days; with the combination of sun and fog, cold and warm, the snow underfoot varied from frozen and bumpy to soft and forgiving to heavy and wet.  But the spectacle was breathtaking.  We would make our way down the slope, from light into fog; then ride the chair lift back up into the light.  Before each run, we would look around again and the ocean of fog below and the beautiful sky above, and say to each other, "Wow!"

Will Travel For Winter

It has been quite warm on the East Coast.  But Saturday evening, I flew into Minneapolis to see my friends Robert and Andrea.  Sunday morning I looked out the back door, everything looked white, and the snow was still coming down hard!

I had remembered snow, despite our lack of it last winter.  But I had forgotten how monochromatic everything looks on a snowy day.

By the time we went outside, there was at least 7 inches of snow on the ground.

Robert and Andrea were very brave to squint into the snowstorm for me to take their picture

but mostly we slogged along through the fresh snow, through the local park (another thing I forgot: that Minneapolis has great little parks scattered everywhere).

We walked around a small lake, peering through the mist to the shrouded shapes on the opposite side.

We came back to the warm house

and Robert showed off his tremendous snowblowing skills (despite appearances he was not actually covering his neighbor's car with snow).

Sunday night we went out to a great restaurant downtown, recently opened, as the snow continued to come down.

This morning we woke up to clear blue skies and the temperature at 10 degrees and dropping.  Now I'm sitting at my computer back in Guilford, Connecticut; outside it's foggy and around 50 degrees.  If we don't get some winter on the East, I'm going to have to go back to Minnesota!

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Doubly Thankful

Two Thanksgivings, with two sides of the family, is pretty wonderful.  So much to be thankful for!

Roasted brussels sprouts

A Thanksgiving table waiting for the guests

A brother and his turkey

A bowl of nuts (could be representative of our family??) with a nutcracker from our grandparents

Another brother, and an uncle still willing to make the trip

Beautiful weather, and a beautiful late afternoon moon

a sweet spouse (my beloved companion) and a dear aunt

Sasha, who sometimes waits patiently (and usually not)

The groaning board produced by a family full of good cooks

And a next great day, starting a wonderful brother-in-law roasting another round of brussels sprouts

A mother-in-law still full of songs, stories and the joy of life

The medicines that cure some ills

The expert turkey-carving cousin and the brilliant turkey resulting from collaboration with the aforementioned sprout-roasting brother-in-law (and somehow here I am thinking of the "kooky uncles and crazy antics" referred to by our friend Philip in this essay)

The second beautiful day, perfect for sisters walking to the dam,

The wonderful daughters who made time to share both Thanksgivings with us

The fun-loving families ready to play together ...

In sum:  I am thankful for a life that includes the sweetness of two beautiful days of family gathering.