RAWR! The Fierce Snow Dinosaur!

On Wednesday, the weather forecasts were calling for just a small winter storm that would move through late in the afternoon into evening. Only an inch or so was predicted, but when the storm came in, just before 5 pm, it came in quick and fierce: within minutes of starting, we had blizzard conditions, with snow coming down at a rate of one to two inches per hour, and pretty much zero visibility.

I had already arrived home from work, fortunately. Road conditions quickly deteriorated. Within an hour or two, there were several vehicle accidents on the road in front of our house. I heard the impact as one gentleman slid his vehicle into a neighbor's tree. My husband went out and found the man, out of his car, confused, wandering around on the road. The man was worried that he had hit someone's tree. My husband directed him to the neighbor whose tree it was, and the man went over to apologize; eventually, he drove away. The plow didn't go for the first time until two hours after the snow started. By 9:30 or so that evening, it had stopped. With a total of four to six inches, and work travel needed first thing in the morning, we went out and shoveled snow in the dark.

The bonus was that in the morning, our world was turned into a fairyland of delights! The snow had been light and fluffy, and it stuck to every single tree and branch. My husband had plans to take my car to get it inspected after his work day ended, so I took the bus. The benefit of this was that I ended up on campus, and it looked like something out of the Chronicles of Narnia, just FULL of magic!

I walked as far and as fast as I could, all around campus with my camera, before catching my next bus over to my office. I took almost 500 photos that morning! On the Old Main lawn, I found a snow dinosaur that the students had made the night before. The dinosaur was very fierce, with many sharp teeth! In this photo, the dinosaur is standing in front of Old Main, the chief administrative building at the center of campus. (I've posted photos of Old Main a few times before, including here - on a blue-sky day - and here - with the elm tree that, alas, no longer graces this area.)

My husband collaborated with me on the song selection this morning. He says the only song that will do is one by the band T. Rex. The song is Bang a Gong (Get It On) ("hubcap diamond star halo," sure, we all know what you're talking about, dudes).