Photos of a winter wonderland...
Photos of something other than train platforms :)
Day 1: February 13
As you all may recall, I was scheduled to return to California on
Tuesday. These photos are from the morning; I went out in the weather
briefly before attempting to make my flight. At this point, we'd seen at
most 2 inches of snow, but it was coming down steadily. No ice yet.
This is the view from the apartment complex; I like the notion of
snow-covered evergreens, so you're likely going to see a few such photos
here. Note the road is still in decent condition at this point.
Snow-covered pine branch, yay!
More snow-covered pine branches, this time while still attached to
the tree.
I make the call to go to Philadelphia -- my flight still shows on-time,
and the trains are running. Sonyaaa makes her opinion clear: I can go, but
the suitcase stays =P
The Lancaster Station
photos go here in the sequence. I arrive in Philadelphia to find my
flight delayed, causing a misconnect in Denver. Rather than play the
standby game (United's hubs in Dulles and O'Hare are both snowed in, they're
routing stranded passengers through Denver in droves), I make the call to
reschedule my flight to Saturday -- kitby and safiiru
have the pleasure of witnessing my epic battle with Reservations while
sitting in a cafe at 30th Street Station. I return to Lancaster on what is
the most beautiful train ride I've taken to date; alas, photos cannot do
that trip justice.
When I arrive in Lancaster, I find out I made the right call -- flight to
Denver is cancelled.
Day 2: February 14
Overnight, the weather has dumped around 9 inches of snow and sleet on
us. Philadelphia is cancelling flights left and right; Dulles and JFK are
closed. Locally, we have enough soft snow on the ground to make snowmen,
snow angels and the like. Since snow is in abundance and I never got a card
for Cat, I do what seems most natural:
In my humble opinion, much better than Hallmark. The nifty thing is, the
heart and name were still mostly-visible a day later; later snowfall helped
to smooth out the edges.
Roads are less passable, plowing is spotty at best.
Same view of pine trees, roughly 24 hours later. Ayup, we're not going
anywhere today. I did head out to the cemetery in the afternoon (about a
mile walk, roundtrip) and saw signs of life, mostly of the children-on-sleds
variety. Resisted the urge to make a snow angel -- need to save some
experiences for future storms :)
After the furballs' traumatic experience on day 1, we decided to
introduce them to snow more gradually by bringing in a chunk of snow/ice for
them to investigate. Here we see Sonyaaa circling around the snow, not
quite sure what to make of it.
Valeria was a bit bolder, and actually started licking at the snow.
Awwww...
Day 3: February 15
No photos here, but we ventured out on foot to the nearby strip mall for
dinner and groceries. The parking lot featured a mountain of plowed snow
that was taller than the mall buildings. Quite impressive visually, but the
walking was a bit treacherous.
Day 4: February 16
The melted snow is still available to the cats, and they have their
standard bowl of tap water as well. Naturally, this is unacceptable to
Sonyaaa... she just *has* to have my straight-out-of-the-tap glass of water
instead:
That's okay, I guess I was done with that glass after all...
Aha, she can't reach it directly, but maybe if she dabs her paw in
it...
Success! She's now enjoying the fresh tap-water taste of my water, with
extra flavouring that only a furry paw can provide. (And meanwhile I am
looking for a new glass to put my water in =P).
Still expecting to return to California, and leave the winter wonderland
behind, tomorrow. But stay tuned -- the way plans have gone so far, I might
well end up flying straight from here to Vancouver at this rate :)