Still Cold. Very Cold.

Another very cold night at the Aerie. It dropped to 0.2 degrees Thursday night/Friday morning. Thursday afternoon, in the sunshine, it briefly got up to 17 degrees but during the day Friday it never got above 15 degrees before some light snow began falling at 3 PM. It's not supposed to amount to much with only 2 inches before it ends tomorrow around noon. The weather gurus say it will get warmer during the next few days. We'll see.

Meanwhile the birds have been hitting the feeders to scarf down my sunflower and thistle seeds. There must be a hundred Common Redpolls (and probably a few Hoary Redpolls too) moving in waves in and out of the yard. The cats love the distraction.

Terry left this morning to beat the weather. She went into New Jersey to 1) pick up a load of boxes of Jess' stuff and 2) attend a baby shower Saturday afternoon. She should be home between 7 and 8 PM well after the snow has finished and, hopefully, after I've got the darn stuff off the driveway.

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D-Day minus two for our trip to the Gulf Coast. I spent some of the day planning our route down to Louisiana and making reservations for the three campgrounds we'll stay at on the way. We're scheduled to leave early Monday morning with our first stop will be just south of Roanoke, VA. Tuesday night we'll be just south of Chattanooga, TN. Wednesday night's stop will be in Slidell, LA. Finally, Thursday we'll arrive in Berwick, LA on the west side of New Orleans and join up with the rest of our crew. With these cold temperatures I'm really looking forward to the warmer temps down south.

Tomorrow, in addition to removing any snow from the driveway, I'll be reinstalling the auxiliary batteries in the Winnie. Because of the cold weather, I've kept them in the garage after recharging them. I've also got to take the cover off the Winnie and make sure I can get the motor to turn over. Sunday we'll load our clothes and anything else that needs to go. Anything that might freeze will be staying in the house until Monday morning, however, as the temps will still be well below freezing.