Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice and already I am so very tired of winter.  Or at least with its byproducts.  All we've been hearing is that La Nina will be giving us a very dry winter.  So far we've had three winter storms in two weeks with the latest one hitting today.

In a theoretical sense, I like snow.  I like to stay indoors and watch it snow.  I don't particularly like to be out in it. 

What's most annoying is the timing of this latest storm.  It was originally forecast to hit us starting late yesterday and continue on into today with it clearing out tomorrow.  Instead it started tonight and is continuing on into tomorrow.  I'm hoping we don't get a lot of snow or I may not be able to make it to the airport on Saturday so I can visit with my family on Christmas.  Sigh.

Oh, well, will deal with things as they happen.

On a related note, things were VERY foggy in the way to work on Wednesday.  Normally when you look at this tree, you can see buildings behind it.  I thought it looked cool with standing there all alone.

Papillon

Christmas trip

For Christmas, my sisters, brother-in-law and I all met up in San Angelo to spend time with my mom.  As mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, the drive for me is long and, at times, rather boring.

The trip to San Angelo was rather unusual this time.  I called ahead and checked on the condition of the roads.  The recording said they were fine.  The recording did not mention the foggy conditions that were pretty much in place until I got to Roswell, NM.  Sometimes you could see several hundred yards to a mile.  That's unusual for the country I was driving through where you can normally see for several miles in all directions.  In Lincoln County, NM the fog was especially heavy.  Not much fun to drive in.  Here's a picture of when conditions were foggy but not too bad.

Normally you could see for at least 5 to 10 miles -- at least.

All the fog plus temperatures around freezing put a frost on the vegetation.  Just north of Vaughn, NM, I spotted a couple of trees.  I pulled over to take a photo.  When I rolled down my car window, it sounded like there was a light rain.  It turns out I had stopped about the time that the temps got just above freezing and it was the sound of frost sliding off branches and plopping on the ground.  Here's one of the trees.

Just north of Vaughn is a very small town called Encino.  Here's a sad little house.  I always wonder what it's history was and why it looks like this now.

On the trip to San Angelo I was very glad I had finished all my shopping.  One of the towns I went through was LaMesa, TX and the strip center with WalMart was PACKED.  Ditto in Big Spring, TX.

Between LaMesa and Big Spring I almost ran off the road when I spotted what I thought was a full-grown, real, live reindeer.  I checked again on the way home and decided (due to the other animals in the pasture) that it was probably an elk instead.  I think the ranch it was located on hosts hunters for a living.

Christmas was nice and so was the drive home.  It was sunny and windy and a bit chilly.  As I got to Brownfield I noticed several long ribbons of geese headed in an easterly direction.  Not sure why and where they were going, but they were pretty to look at.  Also spotted on the drive home was a solitary hawk perched in the only tree for several miles.

It's good to be home.

Papillon