A Few Images Of The Snow

If you're from anywhere around here and you're also on Facebook,
you have been innundated with images of the best snowstorm here in the last 20 years.
In that case, sorry, 'cause here are some more.

If you're not from around here and for some reason
have been living in a bubble the last couple days,
this is what you have been waiting for!
Not.

But, snow like this is such a rarity around here,
that I had to get out my camera & snap like crazy.
Here are the results.
As usual, I haven't done any post-editing,
on account of that would take time & effort,
and I'm way to lazy for that.

During & afters:






I took so many, it's hard to choose . . .
(and please ignore the peeling paint on the eaves, thanks)















I do love snow.

A Promise Is A Promise

Yesterday, while we all waited for our "weather event",
I told a certain someone that, if I could get out of my neighborhood,
I would come take him out in the snow.

Very blithly made promise.
See, most predictions of snowy doom don't pan out around here.
Plus, it was still sunny with nary a cloud in sight.
Even if it did snow, I love going out in it.
Especially in the car.

So, yeah, a "weather event" indeed.

(If you click on that picture & enlarge it, I got the tiny snowflakes too. Cool.)

I put 4 root beers out in the snow for later.
There's something very rustic & ski lodge-esque about using the snow as your personal fridge.
After a couple hours, I went to pull out a couple for BS & me and . . .


. . . huh?
It was the mailman!
That's okay. "through rain, sleet, snow or gloom of night . . ." and all that.
He sure got the snow & sleet today.
He deserves a treat.

I really should pack up & move to Buffalo, as much as I love snow.








I left myself a bit of an out in that promise yesterday.
I distinctly remember saying "If I can make it out of the neighborhood . . .",
so I waffled & vacillated & alternated & pondered.
Do I stay in my warm, toasty house?
Do I brave the elements & go back to the Home?
Do I tell him the roads were just too bad?
I spent a good couple of hours doing this,
but the thought of that hopeful face won the argument.
So, after a fruitless attempt to persuade BS to venture out with me -
"Mom, I used to live in Blacksburg. We got this every winter.
If I don't have to go out, I ain't going out", or something to that effect,
I got in the car & slid down the driveway.
It was still snowing, and the roads were terrible.


Very little had been plowed.
I really do like driving in it, though.
I just go very slow and I don't have a problem.
Unlike some of the other buttheads on the road.
I didn't get above 22 mph the whole way.
The trip took an extra 7 minutes.
Big whoop.

But it was worth it.
We bundled that boy in so many layers of clothes,
he was like that little kid in "A Christmas Story".






Normally, this kid is a human furnace and wants a fan blowing on him all the time.
Uh, not this afternoon.
When we got back in, he was still cold and wanted to sit
by his roommate's bed under the heat lamp.
With blankets.
It was a memorable moment,
and I'm sure his mom won't believe me without photographic evidence.





For those people who grumble & complain when it snows,
Just slow down and enjoy the gift.

Catching The Snowy Spirit

Even our local grosh'ry store is getting into the spirit of the impending winter storm of doom.
Although, something tells me that this wasn't quite on purpose.



Unintentional or not, I felt the chill.

Of Pictures, Parties & Performers

On Saturday, I got to do 2 fun things.

No, make that 3 fun things.
Although, if you include sleeping late, that would make 4 fun things.

Fun Thing #2 - Disappearin' Railroad Blues

After sleeping late (fun thing #1), I drove down to the Outer Banks,
but on the way, I met up with my friend RAD to take some pictures.
It was a gray & dreary day.
Again.
We ended up at Bob's Fishing Hole on Rt 168, just north of the NC line.
I had remembered cypress knees all along the edges of the water.
Trouble is, we really couldn't get to a good place to shoot the cypress knees,
but there was a very nice set of train tracks there.
Part of the Chesapeake & Albemarle RR.

I don't think these tracks are used any more.
Or, if they are, it is only rarely, since the rails are rusted.
But it makes me feel more than a little sad and very nostalgic for a different era.
An era before the interstate & the solitary automobile, before the impersonal & efficient jet.
An era where the journey was as much of an adventure as the destination.

Now, here's what I want you to do.
Play the video below, and while the music plays, slowly scroll through the pictures.






















If you want to read about the song and the real "City of New Orleans" train, you can do that too.


Fun Thing #3 - Happy Birthday To Rosie

I left the train tracks and continued my journey south.
My friend Rosie Hawthorne (not her real name) has a birthday this week,
so a party was in order with some friends, relatives & neighbors.

On the way there, I stopped along the beach road to take a peek at the ocean.
Ahhhhh, that's more like it.
This is what an Atlantic winter should look like,




not this, like it was the previous weekend . . .



Poor Rosie even made some of her own party food,
although she would say it wasn't really her party.
Saturday was also the birthday of one of her party guests.
Surprise!

There was music and fun


and even a little groping.
(some of you will get the reference of the sunglasses on the backs of their heads.)


More than once, evidently.


And Rosie with her faaaaavorite gift.
(Sorry, another inside joke.)



Fun Thing #4 - The Muse's First Comedy Club

My brother runs a writing school downtown, The Muse,
which he founded with a friend.
It is linked on the right.
Saturday night they had their first graduates of the comedy writing class
perform their stand-up routines.




It was very enjoyable.
The school regularly holds readings for their students in all genres.
If you are in the area, check it out sometime.

I was beat.
Really, how much more fun could I have squeezed onto one day?