Braving Nemo

I had planned to visit my parents this past weekend.  I'd requested Friday afternoon off, planned out my transportation, and thought nothing more of it.  And then Thursday evening, my mom suggested that I might consider the impending blizzard.  All bets were off for a while, but with some last-minute scrambling, the stars re-aligned, and I headed north bright and early Friday morning.

We got about 20 inches of snow over 2 days; it was nice and cozy to stay inside while the wind gusted.

The snow was whipped around the house and carved like sand in a desert, into dunes as high as 8 feet.  Thus, on one side of the house, much of the yard was stripped of snow; but it appeared incongruously elsewhere on the other sides.  I found it was really difficult to get a picture that conveyed the scale and shape of the drifts, so I didn't try very hard.

Friday night - 3-foot drifts formed after
less than 8 inches of snowfall.

Saturday afternoon - 8-foot drift
(seen through window)

We played games (Upwords and Boggle) and watched movies (favorite of the weekend: The Awful Truth), but eventually it stopped snowing and gusting.  Time to dig out.  Le sigh.

On Sunday, we headed off to church, and discovered that services had been canceled!  (We hadn't bothered checking first,  since this is a local church that most parishioners can walk to. And because the storm had stopped about 24 hours earlier.)

However, this freed us up  to go tromp around in the snow a bit.  We soon discovered that 20 inches of snow is a bit tricky to walk in without snowshoes or skis...  So we kept trying different parks and public spaces.  Eventually, we found a pleasant wood -- essentially by chance, as it was unmarked and unadvertised -- where the snow was not so deep.  It was really lovely.  Although previously unknown to us, the area is apparently known to dog fanciers, so we met several dogs -- all friendly -- and their owners.

So glad I made the trip.