Slip sliding away

The Willamette Valley is not known for having the greatest winter weather, that is unless you like rain and lots of it. But if there is one positive you can say about winter weather in the Willamette Valley, it is that it rarely gets below freezing. That means it rarely snows, which is good, because the valley, Portlanders in particular, are just not equipped to handle it.

But here it has been below freezing temperatures at least at night all week, and come Sunday it snows and sleets in Portland. A strong, blustery wind, whipped up the show and sleet that didn't stick to the streets. And idiots were out on the roads, apparently going to and from their Christmas shopping errands.

Unfortunately I found myself in that mess in Portland today, because I had spent the night up there Saturday night to do so dogsitting for my daughter's family. Fortunately, the people that were out on the roads were taking it slow and easy. But that didn't stop cars from slipping and sliding on the hills, sliding into each other on occasion.

Unfortunately, I have a pickup, which had nothing in the back. So, I stopped and picked up two 50-pound bags of dog food to have some weight back there, to try to keep the ass end from sliding around in front of the headlights. I'm not sure if it helped much, but I made it out of Portland, and the roads got better as I got closer to Salem.

It only took me about 3-4 hours to get home, including a stop for food for me and dog food for the truck. But that was nothing compared to my daughter's family. It took them 8 hours to get home to Portland from Pendleton, which is normally about a 4-hour drive.

Fortunately, everyone is home safe and sound. This afternoon I wasn't so sure that would be the case.

Winter
Snow
Portland

Mysterious visitors

I have this little counter that measures how many visitors come to this site. I like to joke that I have 5 readers, which isn't too far from the truth. On average somewhere between 20 and 30 people visit this page per day. A few days have been higher, reaching into the 40s, but the weirdest thing happened Friday.

Friday was the highest traffic day ever on this humble little blog with 80 visitors. With a little more research, I learned that many of those visitors were coming from a site called Doc Searls Weblog.

So, for all of you stumbling in here from Doc Searls' site, welcome. Doc's site features a lot of photos of landscapes and such, and he makes mention of the picture at the top of this page. So for Doc's readers' information, the photo is of the San Bernardino Mountains, which have been covered with snow for several months now as Southern California has been getting most of the moisture that normally goes to the Pacific Northwest in the winter. The photos shows the mountain range, which is north of Palm Springs, and runs east to west. The picture is taken from the south looking north from Palm Springs.

So, that's what the photo is all about. And thanks to Doc for the mention, but I don't think this blog is turning out to be his readers' cup of tea. So, maybe the info about the photo will fit their interests more.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

Blogging
Pictures
Mountains
Snow
Palm Springs