Brr...

Snow cold

We're supposed to go into town today ("town" being Albuquerque in this case) to get some tests done at the med center, pick up some medications, take care of some errands, and possibly attend a literary event for the author of "The Feminist and the Cowboy" this evening, but when I woke up this morning, I noted a distinct chill in the air -- despite the fact that the heat was on at its usual 68°.

Something must have happened.

Looking outside, the snow is glittering brightly in the morning sun. It's gorgeous, but...

We had a fair amount of snow yesterday, enough to make a small snowman in the front which was fun. It wasn't all that cold, maybe in the high 20's or so, and there wasn't a lot of snow and ice build up to deal with on the roads. The prediction was that temps would drop into the high single digits overnight, so we took the usual precautions against frozen pipes and such and went to bed.

Well, the hot water pipe is frozen in the bathroom, even though (we thought) we left a trickle flowing through the pipes overnight (there's still hot water in the kitchen; it's usually the other way around when we go through a Big Freeze). When I checked the temp on the internets a few minutes ago, it was -6°. Yikes.

That cold a temperature was not expected. We're getting used to the fact that weather predictions in New Mexico are rarely on the mark, especially with regard to timing of weather events and temperatures -- whether hot or cold.

We're not used to such bitterly cold temperatures, however, and the fact that there will probably be a good deal of ice on the roads today and tonight may make us rethink our planned expedition and postpone it till things warm up a little bit.

It's one of the less familiar balancing acts we're becoming accustomed to out here on the Frontier... 


[More about that Frontier in due time.]