Might Not See This Again for a While - Sugar Meadow Drive, Great Falls, Virginia
02.13.2008 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2008

I woke up this morning, shuffled out into the upstairs hallway with my hair sticking up in eight directions, looked out the second floor window over the foyer and saw snow on the Davis’s driveway across the street.

“Snow!” I said to the barely lucid LaRay, who was still in bed.

“Snow?” she mumbled.

“Snow!”

After five years of marriage we don’t have to say much to say a lot. I imagine in twenty years this entire exchange will be telepathic.

It’s supposed to snow all day. We should get an inch or two, according to the Snow Advisory that was published by Those Who Publish Such Things.

I laughed when I read the Snow Advisory. Growing up in Minnesota, we didn’t get Snow Advisories unless Fenris ate the sun and the endless winter arrived. We just went outside, snapped a three-foot-long icicle off the eaves and played Zorro swordfights in the yard.

Anyway, here is our Snow Advisory for today:

…SNOW ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM EST THIS EVENING…

LOW PRESSURE OVER THE MIDWEST EARLY THIS MORNING WILL MOVE SOUTH OF THE MID ATLANTIC THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. LIGHT SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP ACROSS THE AREA BETWEEN 8 AM AND 10 AM. THE SNOW MAY INTENSIFY FOR A PERIOD DURING THE AFTERNOON…BEFORE ENDING THIS EVENING. 1 TO 2 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED…EXCEPT PERHAPS LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ACROSS CENTRAL VIRGINIA NEAR THE CHARLOTTESVILLE AREA.

A SNOW ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE PRIMARILY TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES…AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.

I got a check from Virgil the other day for the money I fronted him for his fantasy football team. There was a note in the envelope with the check that told me not to spend the money on fancy dancin’ girls. That won’t be a problem; the dancin’ girls I liked were never the fancy ones.

Virgil and I have been on three mountaineering trips together and he still kicks around in those sorts of remote places. His note got me to thinking: I think I need to get back on a mountain. It’s been seven years-plus since I was on Rainier and even longer since the two Katahdin trips. Maybe some snow and ice and clear, clean mountain air will get my mind right. And it doesn’t have to be the hardest route or anything super-challenging. No rappels off manky rope tied off on a stub of crumbly rock. No need to toe-point across a sheet of ice (although that was fun). I just want to get to the top, give a barbaric YAWP and then sit down and enjoy. Maybe eat a Cliff bar or something. Take some pictures. And breathe deeply.

Tabular Iceberg - Antarctic Sound, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/8; 1/800 sec; 200mm
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

Nothing to Lose Your Head Over - Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/5.6; 1/125 sec; 200mm
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

Kelp Gull - Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/5.6; 1/400 sec; 200mm
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

Glacier Sun - Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/22; 1/250 sec; 15mm fisheye
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

Ice Window - Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/8; 1/200 sec; 200mm
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

Even Penguins Bitch and Moan - Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Exif: ISO 50; f/4.5; 1/1250 sec; 200mm
12.31.2006 ©Michael Raymond 2006 - 2007

This post was meant to be published yesterday but was bumped to today. The timeline of events is actually 24 hours older than what the post makes it seem.

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Jeff Watson AI Threat Level: Green - The reader may proceed without danger of reading anything related to American Idol.

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Written from: Great Falls, Virginia
Weather at 10:32pm: 46° and clear

We’ve had winds of up to 40,000 miles per hour blowing through our neighborhood for the last twenty-four hours as a massive storm front - one that dumped rain for over thirty-six hours straight - moved through. The howling of the wind was so bad that last night we packed up the bed (meaning we took all the blankets and the comforter) and camped out on the couch in the basement to escape the noise. Even when the wind wasn’t shrieking around our house like ancient spirits melting Nazis à la Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark there was a spooky background sound, like a ghostly freight train thundering past in the not-so-distant background or the sound of someone’s tortured soul being sucked through a giant cosmic Silly Straw. Very eerie.

Amazingly, nothing was damaged. The birdfeeders, little flimsy things hanging from hooks on the back porch which I saw blown sideways and nearly parallel to the ground when I peeked outside at three in the morning, survived intact. The trashcan more or less stayed put after the garbage men emptied it - unlike the two green behemoths, driven by the wind, that were cruising down the middle of Great Falls Forest Drive - and the lawn was devoid of roof shingles. It looked like we were going to get out of this scot-free…

…until I saw the fir tree out back listing to starboard like a drunken sailor on leave in Bangkok.

Please note, the fir tree does not normally lean at this angle.

Folks, I don’t think this one is going to make it: