We almost had a white Christmas here in North Carolina. It came the day after Christmas, and we were on the edge of the system and got mostly sleet. In 35 years, I have had only one white Christmas, and it was 3 or 4 inches of snow sandwiched between 2 inches of ice. (One inch on the ground under, and one on top of it.) I had just turned 14, and we still lived out in the country. We were iced in for about a week. So for fun, I went to the neighbor’s dairy in the evenings to help feed an milk.

Post shut down Monday (with the exception of essential personnel), so I got a snow day. Granted I still worked all day on a class I will be teaching, and considered staying in my pajamas to work on it. Tuesday was 2 hour delay, but I only postponed the trip an hour. Trip was fine, until I got to post. Yeah, those roads weren’t so clear. Ah, there is just something about black ice, that reminds me of my first 3 years in England. There was about a mile strip on the back road between Alconbury and Molesworth that was adjacent to a small forest. Since it generally got very little wintertime sunlight, it stayed pretty slick if any wet stuff fell. Most people there would take the A14 back and forth during winter weather, but I “rebelled” as I was prone to do over some things. Yes, the back road was not ideal, however, all you had to do was slow way down, stay of the brakes, and you were fine. On a clear dry day, I could make the trip between the 2 bases on the back road in 15 minutes. When it was wintery, it would take me 30-45 minutes as opposed to up to 2 hours on the A14. Of course there was always 2 or 3 idiots who would rush on the ice/snow/frost, end up in the ditch, and cause us all extra safety briefings, and orders not to take the back road. What really got me about that was that there were generally more accidents on the A14 with greater damage and personal injury. Didn’t have to watch out for the lorries (translation:tractor-trailors) on the back road, which tended to make me feel safer.

Anyway, still winter stuff on the ground here, but it’s almost all off the roads now. It’s supposed to be in the 60’s through New Year’s Day. Ah, winter in the South. My parents got the white Christmas in Arkansas. Glad we went home for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas….