Urban Epic

We got a straight-out nor'east blizzard in the Smallish City yesterday. 2 and 3.14 text-messaged me saying they had movies, games, duck cassoulet in the oven, and peanut-butter cookies to be baked. But it was no weather in which to extract my car and try to drive the four miles over there.

Instead, I went by ski. What an expedition! The streets were virtually deserted except for the occasional plow. I schussed four blocks down the big hill to the park (not stopping at the stop signs), then tromped through the untracked oaks, under the interstate, and over to the buried jogging trail around the cove. Up to this point the weather had been just pleasantly vile, but approaching the ocean the wind built to a fury, visibility whited out, and the snow turned to icy horizontally-peening pellets. I was very happy to have goggles on. Whitecaps whipped in from the invisible void and lifted the near-shore grey-green slush and ice in undulating waves. Lately someone has been building primitive-looking rock cairns along the water's edge, and these drifted into and out of view like Viking monuments. The snow was thick underfoot and the whole city was lost from sight as I trudged. Never has an urban area seemed so wild to me; the conditions were as harrowing as any I've encountered in the mountains.

Eventually I passed the water and on into 2's neighborhood. We spent the afternoon in the kitchen and living room, reading and chatting and eating. The snow kept coming. Eventually 26 drove me home. It was a good adventure.