This morning was the first in a long time when we could actually see the sun rise.
Sunrise from the deck — click to enlarge
My drive home from Huntsville, Alabama, takes me over the Little River, which flows on top of Lookout Mountain. We have had lots of rain in the last week, so the river was running pretty high. There is a waterfall just below the bridge.
The river was high
I’ve seen it higher, but this was pretty nice.
Sometimes we get a decent amount of snow down here, but if there is even a hint, businesses and schools close and people make runs on the grocery stores for milk and bread. Most of the time, a hint is all it amounts to.
This time we got a little sleet that changed into snow. A little slush accumulated on streets, and there was a light dusting of snow on the fields and forests. It started at about 11 am, and by around noon, most of Huntsville, Al, where I work, was closing down. I was at a meeting on Redstone Arsenal when the word came that the arsenal was closing, supposedly in stages to prevent a traffic jam at the gates. But that plan didn’t really work. As soon as everyone heard that the arsenal, which includes the Marshall Space Flight Center, was closing, they left. There are about six thousand employees at Marshall, and in the thousands on the rest of the base (I’m not sure how many — a lot). Most of them left at the same time. I took this picture with my iPhone while sitting in a line of cars exiting the base. Don’t worry; I wasn’t moving at the time.
This is the worst of it — I had to turn on my windshield wipers
That was about the extent of the snow.
If you look closely you can see a line of cars on a cross street. Traffic was backed up a couple of miles trying to get through the gates and off the base. Just on the other side of the gates, the highway crosses I-565, which has five westbound lanes at that point leading out of the city. It was bumper to bumper as far west as I could see. It looked like everyone in the city was leaving. I think it would look about like this if we had been told there was going to be a nuclear strike on the city.
But Huntsville is not a huge city, so the traffic jam was over pretty quick. And so was the snow.
Saturday was a damp, fairly dark day, just like the day before. The conditions were similar to those of Christmas day. The visibility was about the same, or possibly lower.
Walking down Lavender Trail towards the gap.
We turned left towards Texas Valley, like we did on Christmas Day. We didn’t walk far before I realized that the fog was gone. At the bottom I turned to look back up.
The clouds hide the top of the mountain.
Just like on Christmas Day, what we saw as fog on the mountain top was clouds from below. The clouds were thick enough that the top of the mountain was not visible.
The air was noticeably warmer at the bottom of the mountain, and as we walked back up I regretted wearing a long-sleeve shirt. As the day progressed, the air became warmer up at the top of the mountain, and the clouds withdrew to higher altitudes.
By 4 p.m. it was 65 F. I talked to a friend in Denver around mid-afternoon. He said they were headed to an expected high of 12 F.
Human visual perception is a funny thing. You can be absolutely certain that you see a particular thing, and unless you look a little further you may never know how wrong you were.
On a recent walk with Zeke, I saw this.
Look into the woods
Does that dark object slightly above mid-picture look like anything to you? For a few seconds I was convinced it was a dog sitting on its haunches. I couldn’t tell what kind it was, but I thought either a German shepherd or a doberman. Once my mind had made that identification, that’s what it looked like. I began to fill in details and the longer I looked, the more it looked like a dog.
Then I asked myself why a dog would be sitting out in the woods like that, calmly watching us approach, without a motion. So I went closer.
A log is not a dog
Up close it doesn’t look much like a dog.
Why would I have identified this as a dog? From a distance this object had the rough outline of a sitting dog. Even the coloring suggested a dog, although part of what I saw as coloring was actually the leaves behind it, seen through the gap between its “legs” and its “body.” It was considerably larger than a dog, but at that distance, the scale was not immediately obvious. Also, abandoned dogs are far from rare on our rural mountaintop. And, probably most important, my wife and I have been discussing the possibility of getting another doberman. So, wishful thinking?
Would you have seen a dog, or something else?
The cats have been training for diving competitions. Since they don’t like water, they usually choose the bed. No, they don’t dive onto the bed, they practice while sleeping on the bed.
A perfect 10
This is the closed pike position. Her form is quite good. I am not sure what the correct placement is for the tail, but this looks right. On the other hand, Zoe is a little sloppy.
A 6, to be generous
This apparently was intended to be the pike in the open position, but it fails on multiple counts. Maybe sleeping on the sofa threw his timing off.
Zeus sneaks in
This is our late doberman, Zeus. For the purposes of this post, he has been made an honorary feline. I think he was actually practicing his cannonball.