Sea Smoke

So the trip to the ancestral grounds didn't come off this past weekend. While the weather here was not so bad either on Friday or on Saturday, the homeland received more than a foot of snow. So delaying that trip to another time was actually a smart move.

Friday and early Saturday were actually pretty nice here in Little Rhody. Late Saturday we started seeing some sleet which turned to light snow. After getting about an inch of the white stuff, the rains came. Heavy downpour early Sunday with peals of thunder off in the distance. It woke me up, I thinking that perhaps the rain had turned to snow, thought the noise to be a snowplow rumbling down the street. Nope, thunder.

Very rainy Sunday until the afternoon when I was watching a bit of football. Then it started to get cold, bitter cold, Vermont cold (but not Saskatchewan cold). As I was inside and the cold was outside I wasn't much bothered, until the house began to creak and pop, which completely freaked the feline staff. Anya was waking me up all night with a worried "meow," which I took to mean, "Lazy human, we are about to die, do something." My reassurances that it was just the cold settling into the house's bones didn't improve her morale all that much.

Her sister wasn't too worried, I think she slept through it all.

Awakened on Monday (far too early after a late night in front of the telly) to hear the wind howling outside. Checked the temperature...

3°...

...with a "feel like" of minus 20°. Yay!

Should I call it a wash and go back to bed? Nah, feline staff had vet appointments that morning so I might as well go to work. Looking out the window there didn't seem to be too much ice on the car. But looks can be deceiving.

Both front doors (Honda Element only has those two really) were frozen shut. After a moment of thinking about the gorilla approach (grunt, just pull harder on door handle, Og) it struck me that I didn't wish to buy and install a new door handle. Then I remembered that the Element has a rear hatch and a tail gate. Which opened after only a moment's protest.

Climbing over the back seats and the front seats (while wearing a bulky winter jacket) I managed to reach the driver's seat. Once upon a time I had the opportunity to climb into the pilot's seat in the E-3A AWACS, this reminded of that time. A rather cramped cockpit it seemed to me, compared to the spacious accommodations of the F-4D Phantom II.

Anyhoo, got Big Girl started with only some minor groaning and whining from all of the frozen components, and after scraping copious amounts of ice off the windscreen, we were on our way. Scraping ice doesn't bother me that much, it keeps me warm and is saving me the 30 grand it would cost to build a nice garage. Which is, of course, the only type of garage acceptable to The Missus Herself.

As I drove to work over the Mt. Hope Bridge I noted, casually, that "the ocean is on fire!"

Sea smoke dontcha know, the water is still much warmer than the air, so when the cold air brushes over the surface, fog forms, which some call sea smoke. I like that term, sounds rather nautical doesn't it?

So I snapped that photo above on the way home from the parking lot of a local dining emporium. After taking the shot I saw this...

Canada geese sheltering from the wind. At first I thought they were ducks, then one stretched his neck out (probably to determine what the heck the silly human was doing) and confirmed their identity as geese.

Like I said, the water was warmer than the air, not that I would take shelter therein, but hey, it was out of the wind. While they did look miserable, they were probably handling the weather better than I did!

Bitter cold it was. But on the upside, it's supposed to be 40° tomorrow.

Practically a bloody heat wave!

Stay warm my friends!