Beauty Within Arms Reach

It started snowing while I was driving to work this morning, and continued to snow hard all day long.  By mid-afternoon the temperature had climbed a few degrees above freezing, which thankfully helped to improve the condition of the roads. 

My car is front wheel drive, and I have driven fairly slowly and carefully this entire week as I have run into both snow and ice.  The car seems to do fine in this kind of weather as long as I keep my head.

On the drive home from work today there was a lot of snow throughout the Douglas, Juneau and Valley areas.  There was surprisingly almost no snow at all in Auke Bay, and then (surprisingly again)  a good amount of snow Out the Road.  There is no apparent rhyme or reason to the weather patterns in this area, and I have learned to travel through different areas and just accept the weather as it comes at me.

Once I pulled off Glacier Highway, the back roads were a mess, and my driveway was very slick.  I got the car turned around, but they are calling for another 6 inches of snow tonight, more tomorrow and then a start of a thaw on Sunday when the temps get up around 40 degrees.  I am hoping that the predictions are correct because if it snows a whole lot and doesn't melt I don't think I will be able to get my car up some of these hills on Monday......

Right now I don't really care.  I have food.  I have heat.  I have a phone and cable and internet.  I have wine coolers.  Everything a girl needs to hunker down for the weekend in the winter in Alaska!

Well not quite.  LC would be a nice friend to hunker down with for the weekend in the winter in Alaska.  Someday soon...............someday soon.

The snow is beautiful.  I borrowed snow shoes a couple of weeks ago, but was not sure if I would have a chance to try them out.  Tomorrow I will try out snow shoes for the first time.  It should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to giving it a shot. 

This weekend I will snow shoe.  And mountain bike.  And walk in the country in the beautiful snow.  And each evening I will curl up on the couch and stay warm.

Some pictures taken of the roads, driveway and walkway around my house, and a couple of pictures taken out the windows - of the beautiful scenery that is within arms' reach for me now.