Candidate training for the Afton Alps Ski Patrol came to an end on Sunday, February 4. All the candidates passed both the written, skiing and toboggan tests. Whew, it was fun training these people, but it is time consuming. On the 25th we'll check out potential candidates for next years class.

Well, Ma Nature certainly has been "punishing" us this year. The other night the weatherman said that the temperature hadn't made it up to 40° since the beginning of November. It is unknown whether this is a record. But they also mentioned the depth of the snow on the ground at this time of year hasn't been this deep since 1967. I could have told ya that.

Here's some pictures. The first one is off the front porch toward the North. It's hard to see, but grass is showing under the pine tree branches. The second picture is at the back of the house looking south. Normally (?) we have a January thaw. But not this year. Click on the pictures to get a larger version.

                                            

Instead of walking normally outside, we have adopted the Minnesota shuffle. This is to prevent slipping and falling on the ice. I adopted the shuffle a little too late to prevent wrenching my back in a fall. Geeze, it's hell getting old….

Friday night, 2/23/01, we received 4" of snow, then over 1/2" of rain Saturday, then another couple of inches of snow that night. Then, of course, the Siberian express arrived for another visit. It's been below zero for two many mornings this month. But it least the skies have been clear toward the end of the month.

Once more I'm being reminded of why we want to leave Minnesota in 2+ years. With luck, this will be accomplished in early fall of 2003. But, of course, we want to settle somewhere the skiing is good. Speaking of skiing, I notice that Sandia Peak, above Albuquerque, has had a good year. They were actually fully open after several dry years.

On another note, the local Holiday Rambler Recreational Vehicle Club (HRRVC) chapter (chapter 16) president sent me a form to fill out to put the newsletter into the HRRVC newsletter contest. Just for grins I'm going to send it in to the HRRVC.

Hopefully Mary will get a week off sometime during the April. We thought we would go skiing in Montana sometime during March. But decided when it gets warm in March, we could have a problem with water in the basement. So we're looking to traveling to either southern Missouri or northern Arkansas for a few days. We think it will be warm enough to activate the motor home.

We're not sure how much traveling we're going to be doing this summer. Last summer was unusual in the number of miles put on the motor home. Of course, we were trying to get everything debugged. We'll probably do one big trip. The rest will probably be long weekends.

This summer the Great Northern Railway Historical Society annual meeting will be in St. Paul. But in 2002 the meeting will be in Portland, OR. So we'll see daughter Jean and my cousin Carole. Should be a fun time.

Hopefully by summer we'll recover from the high natural gas prices. Our winter heating bills were double of last year. Once again the consumer suffers because of bad planning by the gas companies.

We'll leave you with a picture of our guardian of the back yard.