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The Day After



Happy Valentine's Day! Well, the Earth is still turning it seems, and the worst is over. We had about 12" (30.5 cm) of snow here before it quit about 11PM last evening. It snowed for something like 17 hours straight . I have not witnessed a winter storm like that since my childhood/youth in southeastern Pennsylvania! And such snows were a regular winter occurance back then. Ah, the Golden Age as my wife says whenever I wax nostalgic

Anyway, today is sunny and COLD with a high of about 14 degrees Fahrenheit. My college is closed again, so another free day for me (oh darn, the disappointment!) while Sonja's university is not opening until Noon. She must head in to lead a committee meeting, unfortunately, but late this afternoon, we're going to head out on the ol' Nordic skis again.

Many other businesses and offices are closed today here in Bloomington-Normal, although in a bizzare twist of something or other, garbage collection is proceeding as scheduled!!! Yes, it's perfectly true as I've seen the truck chugging slowly down our street earlier today.

Now, here are a couple of photos. The top one is from the online version of our local newspaper and shows a stretch if Interstate 55 just north of town early yesterday. I-55 runs between St. Louis and Chicago, going right passed Bloomington-Normal here in Central Illinois.

The bottom photo is of the Grand Duchess Sonja yesterday evening about 5:45 right on our front steps. We decided to bundle up and take some fresh air while we surveyed the wintery landscape. I call the picture "Sonja of the North." The eagle-eyed among you will notice the fine example of an authentic Minnesota hat, which Sonja acquired during her grad student days up in Minneapolis, where we later met, and where winters get serious most years. "Hat hair" is a fact of life up there between November-March!

Comments

Mr. Fox said…
What was that song...? "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow"

Have you laid in a good stock of Stollen Miss, the local cocoa?


DwarfMan
Prince Henry of Anthro-Paphburg
2:21 PM
marinergrim said…
Dean Martin version is one of my favourites.

How's the Grand duchess going to get to work? However she does it I trust she takes care. Over here most drivers seem to lose the ability to drive in poor weather at the first sight of a snowflake.

Enjoy the skiing later.
2:08 AM
MurdocK said…
Hat hair of Minnesota has nothing on the static head of Manitoba!

Three winters in Winnipeg (450 miles north of Minneapolis) will teach the nature of what 'winter' really is! I was there when a 'siberian pipeline' of arctic air arrived making the daytime high not above -28 Celcius (not counting wind chill effects) and the nighttime low around -40 Celcius (the Farenheit-Celcius scales meet at -40!), the whole system stayed for a near record 28 days!

Driving on extremely cold snow is like driving on dusty concrete grimsby, the whole surface becomes 'compacted', then takes on the same properties as rough concrete (at least until the temperature gets above -4 C).
8:17 AM
Mr. Fox said…
Why not hire the Duchess an escort from Stollen?


DwarfMan
Prince Henry of Anthro-Paphburg
12:34 PM
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