Snow Day

To call the current season "winter" has been somewhat laughable this year. When temperatures regularly reach highs in the upper 50s or even 60s, you can hardly call that winter weather. It's been rare that I've needed any kind of jacket when going outside. For some, this would make for a very pleasant climate.

But I moved back to Virginia from North Carolina for one reason and one reason only. Snow. And you just can't have any snow when warm fronts insist upon staying put in your neck of the woods. But all of that changed yesterday.

This was the view outside a friends' apartment yesterday afternoon. I could hardly believe it. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe earlier in the week when the meteorologists on TV claimed that we may see some snow on Sunday. But I couldn't help but be skeptical. After all, we hit 60 degrees as late as Saturday. How could we possibly expect to receive four to eight inches of snow after days like those?

I don't know how it works, but it obviously did. It was snowing pretty heavily on Sunday morning, but nothing was sticking. The ground was far too warm. But the snow continued and the temperature dropped. And this winter wonderland is what came of it. Oh, and that picture is still kind of early in the whole thing. There were still several hours of snowfall to come.

When I left my friends' place, I was a little worried I wouldn't quite make it home. I live at the top of a fairly steep hill. And my car is a lot lighter than my old car. Half-Pint just doesn't move as well in the snow as Jade did. Maybe it'll be better once I get a few more snow days under my belt. As it was, if I'd stayed out much longer, I may not have made it to the top of the hill.

You know what happens to people who work in schools when schools are closed due to snow? They don't have to go to work! I was supposed to work on Presidents' Day. But thanks to eight inches of snow, I got a three day weekend. Can't complain about that.

So today turned into a snow day for me and my friends. Brandon, who didn't have to work because bankers actually did get Presidents' Day off, called me up and told me we were driving to Blacksburg to meet Mark for lunch. Mark didn't have to work because Bluefield College was without power today. So we met up at Backstreets for some pizza and had a good time catching up a little. It really was like some times in college, when things would shut down because of snow or ice, and we would get a day with no classes to just hang out.

And this is the view from my place this morning. Sure looks pretty, doesn't it. Sadly, it's going away. The tree outside my window, which was drooping from the sheer weight of snow on the branches, is now green again. The snowman that some kids built has already fallen over and really just looks like a sad lump of snow that refuses to melt.

I can only hope that this hasn't been the only snow that we will see this winter. We've still got roughly a month of winter left. I just don't think we'll see another storm that will dump this much at one time though. Sure was nice while it lasted.