Friday, November 28, 2014

Thanksgiving

November 27, 2014 — It was touch and go as to whether I'd be able to make the 90-mile drive to spend Thanksgiving day with my South Shore relatives. An early snowstorm covered everything with heavy wet snow on Wednesday, continuing overnight until the early hours of Thanksgiving morning. With the temperature hovering around the freezing mark, the snow had a high water content. I shoveled out once Wednesday evening and felt like I was picking up shovels full of wet cement. Thursday morning I had to shovel again when a few additional inches fell overnight. We ended up with a total of eight inches.

I headed out around noontime in a true winter wonderland. Trees were thickly coated with snow, beautiful but treacherous. Limbs were down everywhere. I later learned 200,000 in New Hampshire had lost power. Fortunately, I was not among them this time. As I drove south, the snow disappeared, and from Boston southward there was no snow at all.

We had a great get-together and mountains of food at Sean's first Thanksgiving dinner in his new house. I quickly forgot the cold and snow of the north in the warmth of family, friends and food. It was a memorable day, chaotic but it was organized chaos.

When I returned home Thanksgiving evening, light snow was falling again. A couple more inches fell overnight. On this, the evening after Thanksgiving, the temperature is falling rapidly, currently in the teens, and the forecast is for single numbers in some areas. Power has been restored to about half of those who lost it, but 100,000 are still waiting. Crews from several states and Canada are joining the restoration effort. Is this an indication of how the entire winter is going to be? I sure hope not!

Photos and a couple of videos of our Thanksgiving at this link:

http://www.linwoodstreet.com/thanksgiving14/