Sunday, February 20, 2011

I Want to Be Somewhere Else

We're going to Gulf Games in Chattanooga, Tennessee this week.  I'm making travel plans, deciding on what route to take, how to avoid big city traffic, and what to do on our mini vacation besides sit and play games for three or four straight days.

I have spent a lot of time planning for summer backpacking trips.  This includes things like shopping for new backpacking equipment.  Shopping includes just looking at things and trying to decide what I want.

Jeanette gets married July 1, and we're planning a short getaway up north that following week.  I have been checking out lodging around Sleeping Bear Dunes.  Lots of nice looking places to stay.  Lots if interesting things to do.

I went to the Golf Show last weekend.  Picked up a lot of brochures from different golf courses and resorts.  Bought some new equipment.  I want to go golfing.

It's mid-February and even though it was sunny and warm part of last week, it's still winter.  I really love the winter season, but all of my recent free times seems to be focused on getting away, doing something besides being in Michigan in the winter.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Blizzard

We got hit with a blizzard overnight.  This massive storm has been all over the news the past couple of days, even before it started snowing here.  Supposedly it stretched from New Mexico to Maine.  Which is meaningless information, because every person it affected is probably only concerned with how it affected him or her.

How did it effect me?  I was eating supper last night near Muskegon watching light snow flurries (hooray for lake effect snow) when I got the notification that GVSU had canceled classes for today.  That was nice.  Driving home after the snowfall picked up and the winds started whipping it around was not nice.  Couldn't go faster than 50 on the freeway, and there wasn't much of a left lane.

This morning I had to walk through a knee-high (or higher) drift over the steps to take the dogs out.  We had a house full of people, and had fun being snowbound.  I got out with the kids and actually shoveled for a little bit.  I was really cautious because of my back, but it was fun.

I worked from home for Saint Mary's this afternoon.  I have six plus hours of online training to complete to be able to apply for IRB approval for the research project we're doing on PMU.  So there was no need to drive at all today, which was a lot of fun.

Tonight I sat by the fire after working on paperwork for teaching tomorrow.  It stopped snowing by noon, and the forecast says no snow until Saturday, so tomorrow things go back to normal.

Too bad.  This unexpected blizzard day off from the normal routine was wonderful!


The drift over the steps onto the porch I had to walk through with the dogs this morning


The rest of the porch, with the drift extending full length...behind the posts!


Drift up to the middle of the garage door.  I took half of this down by myself.