Winter Vacation

This past week Taylor and Shelby, as with many other kids in Maine, were on school vacation. They went snowsledding, to the basketball tournaments, and hung out with their friends.  In general, enjoyed a teenagers break from school.

 I remember our school vacations when I was a kid.  Especially February vacation. For us, it was skiing, basketball tournaments, and hanging out with our friends.  Every year for years we were at Squaw Mountain in Greenville skiing.  Usually it was a family affair and oh boy, did we ever have fun!  The participants?  Too numerous to name, but all the "Clampetts" were usually there.  As were friends. It was just an amazing time in our lives.  Now we all see each other at funerals and talk about the pizza's, Rod having to hotwire Alton's truck because he lost the keys on the ski slope, falling off the t-bar and hiking through the woods, getting hurt at 10 am because Rod pushed me (no-folks, he didn't really but I can't let him know that) and one of the best---Alton getting picked up for speeding, passing in town on a railroad track then us announcing it to ALL our friends in the ski lodge.  Basketball tournaments back when Stearns was a Class A team.

For the boys...we played hockey and went snowsledding.  Justin and Adam and all their friends and families.  We packed up our minivans and head to Canada for tournaments.  To New Jersey for tournaments and of course playing outdoors in sub-zero temps in Millinocket.  All good times and memories of school vacation!

Snow. Again. Mother Nature, we SURRENDER!!

At first this afternoon I planned to update by adding pictures of the crazy storm we are having today.  But, I took a look at the pictures that are already posted and said to myself, "Self, why would you go out in knee deep snow and take more pictures that are only going to look like those already posted?"  So--- Self stayed inside.  Well, kinda. 

The alarm did it's daily "GETOUTOFBEDNOW!" crap at (as a good friend of mine often says) "O-dark-30" this morning with the forecast of a major snowstorm for the day.  By the time I was ready to head to Brunswick for clinical, school had been cancelled with still no sign of snow.  But it was looming.  We all knew it. 

And hit, it did.  Been a raging blizzard all day.About 8 inches of heavy, wet, white stuff on the back deck that Justin shovelled when he got home this afternoon. I haven't ventured out again, after my encounter with a snowbank this morning.  Thanks once again to the Falmouth Public Works and the Falmouth Police Department for their assistance. Of course I can't forget the tow guy from Copp Motors for pulling me out.  Not an easy chore mind you.  I was buried.  Trapped in the car for about an hour which wasn't bad.  If I'd had to get out I could have done the gymnastics to get over the console and gotten out but I didn't need to so I decided to stay warm. It just goes to show that God takes care of people too stoopid to not stay home during a blizzard.  My most heartfelt and sincere thanks go to Adam for calling the tow truck for me today.  Without him, I'd have set in the snowbank for much longer than I did.  Thank you, Adam.

So, if you want to see pictures of today's snowstorm, just scroll down and look at the ones from a couple weeks ago--they are pretty much the same.

Storm of the Century or "Snow Day on Steroids"

Call it what you will.  "Stormzilla".  "Snow-zilla".  Snowpocolypse 2011".  Here in Maine, we call it "A Wednesday in January."  And while we are used to this happening here, most of the USA today (over 2000 miles says the weather channel), and over 100 million people are experiencing what is being called the largest snowstorm in the century.  Lots of snow EVERYWHERE.  Many places that are not used to getting any snow during the winter are getting pounded with up to 24 inches of it today.  Many others are getting ice.  We are getting lots of snow.  Most of the morning has been a complete white-out here but it started to slow down about 90 minutes ago so I went outside to take some pictures.