Winter Wonderland

Wow! That's about all I can say in response to the amazing snowfall we had in Baltimore over the weekend. I'm not sure what the final totals were, but we had a good foot or more where we are in Fells Point. I must confess to a little bit of southern smugness as the entire region pretty much came to a standstill. But in defense of our adopted city, a foot of snow is a lot!!

Hamp and I braved the cold yesterday afternoon and took a walk around where we live to get some pictures to try and give you an idea of how much snow there was. It was fun and took some serious creativity to try and keep the camera dry, but I got some good shots. Grab some hot chocolate, sit back and enjoy our almost white Christmas.

The snow started here around 10:30 on Friday night, so I decided to get some "before" shots. This is right outside the front door of our building.



Here's the same area an hour later.



By the time we got outside yesterday early afternoon, here's what it looked like.



We headed to the right out of our building and went to the little park on the corner. These are a few shots from that part of our walk including Hamp hidden under all those layers.











We kept going down Thames Street toward the main part of Fells Point and I took pictures of various things that caught my eye.







By this time, my nose was running, the camera was damp, and we were cold, so we stopped at Koopers to have some potato soup and warm up a bit. They're located across from the water taxi area so I used the opportunity to capture some more shots for those of you that have visited and know where I'm talking about.











We kept going just a little further past Broadway Square toward the rest of the shopping area but realized things were looking pretty much the same everywhere.










This next picture is a common site as you get further north in your travels. While cities might take care of major roads, think of all the parking lots, businesses, and retailers that need areas plowed so people can get to them. If you have a pickup truck, all you have to do is get a snow plow attached to the front and you're ready for hire!



From the water taxi area, we turned back toward our apartment and headed down the little road that takes you past the french bakery and around Henderson's Wharf where we watched the fireworks on the 4th of July.

















This brought us to the area by our building where "our bench" sits overlooking the water. Until you have something to compare it to, it's hard to tell how much snow was really on the ground.





Right before we went inside, someone started throwing bread in the air for the sea gulls (which you're not supposed to do) and a feathered frenzy ensued. While a little creepy looking, it made for some good pictures.









When we passed the parking lot, we thought we should probably check on our vehicles to see how much trouble we were going to have getting them unburied. Mine wasn't too bad since it was facing the building, but Hamp's truck was on the end and caught a lot of the blowing snow.





As we got to the door of our building, we saw that the snow had continued to pile up while we were gone.





The snow finally stopped falling last night and this morning dawned much brighter than the day before.





We walked to church because the roads were still a major mess and it was fun to see the aftermath of the snowfall. This was taken from the corner looking back toward our apartment building door. Look at the amount of snow on top of the cars! Most of it is straight accumulation, but some of it is from how the wind blew it as it fell.



This is the park by our building as we were walking home from church. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but there's been some snow shoveled so you can walk on the sidewalk, but to the right of the path, you can still see how deep it was originally. The second picture is from the sidewalk looking across the street toward the corner of our building and some of the cars still parked from yesterday.







Our sidewalk was finally dry as we headed toward home, but look at the huge drift from where the plow cleared the road heading into our parking lot. I think we're going to have snow around for a while.





Thanks for taking part of your day to share with us the biggest snowfall we've ever seen.





As we head into Christmas week, let's not forget the good news we're celebrating which is for everyone - there has been born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.