The Iceman Cometh

No, I am not referring to the all-capitalized ICE. I stay far away from making any political commentary on social media, or most places for that matter. Our area was hit with ice in the form of winter storm Bern, a system that caused much chaos and damage across a large portion of the United States over the weekend.

Forecasts for the area were grim, with predictions of up to .50" of ice for our location. When ice forms that thickly, the likelihood of trees falling and taking down power lines rises dramatically. We were so fortunate that in our neighborhood we predominantly had sleet, which tends to fall to the ground and not stick to items in its path. While we were prepared for a loss of power, that did not occur here. We are so grateful that we avoided the worst of the storm. I'll gladly take being stuck inside for a few days over having no electricity.

We had plenty of food and extra water just in case, and are lucky enough to have a gas fireplace in the house. It has a battery charger in the event of power failure, so we would at least have had that as a heat source if the power had gone off.

Making sure that the bird feeder was full before the precipitation began was good for entertainment. The birds and squirrels were very active in the yard during the storm. I never get tired of watching them, and taking pictures.

backyard critters

There is still some residual ice on the side roads and walkways, so I will stick close to home again today. In fact, I cancelled my six month dermatology appointment for this morning as the secondary road out of here is shaded and never treated. I hated to do that because it is so hard to get an appointment with my doctor, but it was not an emergency and certainly not worth the risk of an accident.

There is another storm heading this way over the weekend, and hopefully we will again be lucky and avoid the worst of it. I guess we didn't move far enough south!

Snow Day

snow day

We are in our third winter at our new home in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. We experienced our first snow on Sunday. Or maybe I should say our first snice storm. It began as snow and then turned into freezing rain and sleet. I was hoping we had left this weather behind in St. Louis, but apparently not. I would rather have a bunch of snow than ice, that's for sure. We didn't have anywhere to go and our freezer and pantry were well-stocked, so we just prayed that the ice wouldn't cause a limb to fall on a transformer.

We dodged a bullet this time, but more rain followed by snow are on tap for Thursday and Friday. Yippee!

Chicago is so NOT My Kind of Town

Katie and I left for Chicago at 10:00 Friday morning so as to avoid rush hour traffic. Here and there. Figuring we would be heading into town while everyone else was heading out, I thought our timing would be pretty good. We arrived at the outskirts of the city around 3:00 to find the northbound traffic snarled to a stop. It took another hour and 15 minutes to arrive at the hotel, where I gratefully handed off the car keys to the hotel personnel for the weekend. After a little rest in the room (little being the operative word as the kids in the next room were waging a battle of Star Wars proportion), we decided to try a pizza parlor advertised in the shopping guide located in the room. Katie checked the reviews online, and people agreed it was THE place to sample Chicago style pizza. Arriving at 5:45 we were told there would be a 45 minute wait for the two of us. It seemed to be our day of being in the exact same location as everyone else. After 20 minutes we were advised to order our pizza so that it would be ready for us when we were seated. In 50 minutes we were seated at our table, where we received poor service and a pizza that arrived 20 minutes later. So much for the order ahead theory. The pizza was good, thankfully, and we were happy we tried it though we both prefer a thinner crust on our pizza. Facing 30 mile per hour winds (they don't call this the Windy City for nothing!), we struggled to make our way back to the hotel. The heathens in the room next door kept up WWIII until after 12:30, so I was not very perky the next morning as we readied ourselves for the tour at Loyola. The winds had not abated, and coupled with the gray skies overhead led to a less than idealistic day to be hiking around. Warm, comfortable coach buses shuttled us to the campus, located about a half hour away, but after that it was all on foot. Grateful for the fore site to pack my hooded down jacket and gloves, I marveled at the teenage girls tottering around in their high heels and skirts, anxious to impress. It began to rain and then sleet as afternoon turned to evening. By this morning the snow combined with the winds off the lake turned the downtown area into a blizzard. Following a 30 minute wait for my car to arrive from the valet, we trudged through ankle high slush to toss the luggage in the car so we could return home. If this had been my decision on where I wanted to go to attend college, the weather this weekend would have definitely settled things for me. There is no campus or program good enough to convince me to attend college in Chicago. Why weren't we looking at colleges in Florida, for crying out loud? Oh, that's right - it's not my decision.