Snow Cold

I'm sure you haven't heard about the big snow storm that shut down the south this week. Well, we learned that getting to our house on the mountain is near impossible in a storm like that. So we can choose to be home or away, but we can't have it all.  Here's the house from the entry to the neighborhood.  You can see how high it sits off of the main road below. You can also see that the road was covered in snow/ice. It is impossible to drive up a road like that (with no chains). Don had to park over a mile down the road and walk home. In 20 degree temps on a slippery road.  On his birthday.  Kudos to him for not landing the truck in a ditch like 75% of people who made the same attempt to get home.

Once home, he learned that it's actually quite peaceful up there when no one is driving around and all of the woodland animals are hunkered down.  

But being the nice guy that he is, he went back out and helped other stranded folks. Walking them home, giving his coat to a 4 month old and his hat to the older brother. What a nice guy. 

The kids enjoyed the snow. Of course.

And made a tiny snow man.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I missed all of the southern snow storm chaos.  I spent most of the week in Chicago as a lab inspector for the College of American Pathologists. Speaking of Chicago, there was no (falling) snow, but the wind chill was pretty darn spectacular. Please note that the actual temp was -8, and the wind chill was -27.  I really didn't think it was so bad, for 2 reasons: 1) I knew I was leaving in 4 days and 2) I only walked 10 feet at a time (hotel to car to lab to car to dinner).

We inspected a system of 12 labs. It was nutty, but at night, we ate and ate and ate and ate! Oh my! With a daily per diem of $150, we were able to eat quite well. And our pathologist had it all planned out.  I don't want to eat anything for another week.  It was great to sit and eat with my new coworkers. We laughed SO hard. Great times. Here are some photos from the night at Carlucci's. One night was a Brazilian steak house (have mercy! I've never eaten so much meat in my life) and another was seafood. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. And of course we had to have appetizers, desserts, the whole nine yards.

This is the view from my room.  Please take note of the frozen creek/river that is supposed to be running through there.  Chicago was great fun and I hope we can get back there soon. When it's warm, of course.

And now I've had enough cold and I'm ready for spring. Please mister groundhog, don't see your shadow!!!