January 2, 2007 , 8:00 a.m.

Feelings of being shut in were over yesterday when I did a little walk about town. It was cold outside but I dressed in layers. I covered my feet up to my knees with Vaseline to keep out the wet and cold and wore long johns, panty hose and two pair of socks. On the top I had three layers, all with long sleeves; the last one being a heavy sweat shirt with a hood. I wore shades over my glasses to ease the view of the blinding white snow.

I stayed warm except for my face when I walked south against the cold breeze. I enjoyed the walk and took pictures along the way. At Traders Thriftway there were two dogs running around. One was a nice looking lab and the other a beautiful bloodhound. The bloodhound was young, and he could not resist tracking me all the way home as I dragged the box of groceries behind me, his nose was pressed to the snow packed ground like an old tracker. As awesome as he was, I did not want another dog, so I turned and told him to go away. He did. I hope he went back to the store to find his master. Neither dog had a collar which is unusual for anyone living in town.

After getting my groceries home, I paid a visit to my sister across the street. She is living in what used to be a church and keeps it toasty warm with a giant heater and a wood stove. It was almost too hot to stay long. Then I went for my walk about the town with my camera. You can follow my trip on my walk about page.

This morning the sun came up at 7:05. It was 14 degrees with wind from the west at 11 mph. The waxing moon will be high in the sky today and I will probably go out again. I can’t resist exploring in this snow covered reality. It feels like I am in Alaska or at the north pole. It is hard to imagine last summer when it was 110 degrees and I wished for winter.

I will add more later today.

Later: 1:00 P.M.
I walked over to the Methodist Church today about 11:00 a.m. and the last group of people were leaving town. Everyone else who had been staying there had left that morning. Downtown I spoke to the Pastor of the Assembly of God Church and he said all of his guests had also left. The people staying at the senior center have also left town. So now it is time to take care of the rest of the towns people. Lots of stuff to do I imagine. People who need to go to the doctor, people who need oxygen and need to be dug out.

It was hard to get to my Mom’s house today, and she is just across the driveway. The snow is too high on her back porch to get into the back door anyway, so I went around the front by way of the plowed road, then I tramped through deep snow to get to her front porch. Sheesh I’m too old for this.

For family of stranded motorists, the news is that most of them have left. I guess they didn’t like our little town. Too much white stuff one of them said to me.I had to agree.

I have some great pictures of a long line of trucks and cars backed up on main street because of a mail truck who was trying to turn around and couldn't. I will post them on here later. I stood on the medium strip in the middle of highway 287 taking pictures for 30 minutes, then I went to the store and got a few things and drug it home behind me in a box.

I am so tired and a little hungry, I need to eat and rest now. Over and out.

Click Here to see the pictures of the traffic jam.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I will do my best to answer them.