Snow day…

Here we are in Northern Virginia… (in Lorton specifically, the home of the neice, her husband and two daughters) here, 2,500 miles away from our home, to see family and to spend time in research libraries… in the various Smithsonian museum libraries (the museum of American History has three libraries alone), in the National Archive, and the Library of Congress… 

But today we have snow… officially winter storm Wiley… bringing 4 or 5 inches of snow… not a lot of snow… but enough… enough to make travel more difficult and send Federal employees home..  the Federal employees in question being among others, the people who staff the various libraries and museums…  Our research at Smithsonian Museum of American History, Archive Center being the first casualty…  We are waiting to see if the Art Museum Library is open… the two museums, the National Portrait Gallery and American Museum of Art are, but their library is a separate stand alone facility in a separate building…

The street outside is plowed… Metro is open… buses are on a “snow day” schedule… apparently bars in DC are offering snow day specials…  I suspect corned beef and green beer may be very cheap tomorrow.

Outside it is beautiful… all white… undisturbed so far… the trees coated… it’s still snowing lightly…  It’s still early, just after 8:00, but eventually the kids will be outside to play, and the sun is expected late today and it will melt and get muddy… At least most will melt before it gets a chance to get dirty and grey and frozen in to ugly piles of ice…

With all the beauty, we are in the middle of a “Winter Storm Warning”… this from Ready.gov

A Winter Storm Warning for heavy snow means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring. Significant amounts of snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous. Only Travel in an emergency. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight. Food, and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.

Based on the warning, I was expecting more than 6” (up to 10” in some places… less in Southern Maryland) of snow, pretty white snow… with 10 to 15mph winds (gusts to 20mph, I suspect less here) By the way the period after flashlight and the capital F in food are from the web site…

Being from California and the land of orange trees we don’t have many snow days… so at least this is a new experience… The nieces are not as excited as expected… this is not their first snow day, nor the first snow day this year… in fact their school has used up their planned snow day allotment and now, each snow day means that the end of school is extended past the scheduled, planned date…  They are getting a bit stir-crazy… at least there is a good sledding hill nearby…

I have already rescheduled my research appointment for today… we may go into DC where the Air and Space Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of American Art are all open… rumor has it that there are specials on beer at more than one establishment…  I am avoiding the green stuff…