Snow in the San Juan Mountains

Be carful what you ask for, or at least what you talk about. After saying there has been a lack of snow in 2009, it seems Mother Nature has awakened and decided to throw her blanket of snow on Ouray and the San Juan Mountains. Since my last entry it has been snowing non-stop. Not exactly blizzard conditions, but steady and heavy at times. At the time of this writing, it appears to be about 12 inches of fresh powder. The forecast it for snow to continue into tonight and then be clear tomorrow – just enough to do some serious snow shoveling before the next wave of snow is due to hit the day after tomorrow.

I really don’t mind shoveling snow. I tell myself I would rather be shoveling snow than sitting in freeway traffic in Southern California. Besides, it provides a good workout with fresh air (even though the air is a bit more rare at 7800 feet than at sea level in SoCal) and is much less expensive than joining a gym.

Tamara and I are supposed to be attending and participating in a local charity event tonight. It is a spelling bee. This spelling bee is a bit different than the traditional spelling be held for elementary students. This particular competition is broken up into teams of three. Each team is given a word to spell and then has 30 seconds to confer amongst team members before writing their answer on a white board for the judges to determine if the spelling is correct. This competition allows and encourages “cheating.” A team can buy mulligans in order to receive assistance from their “cheerleaders” in the audience. Of course, the mulligans come with a price – all of which goes toward the team’s fund that eventually goes to the charity sponsoring the event. Our team is sponsored by O’Brien’s Pub and we enjoy drinking beer, so our team name is O’Brien’s BEErs. The team name, or course, contains the word BEE in Beers. We’ll see how things turn out and keep you posted. I mentioned early that we are “supposed to be attending.” The weather may determine whether the competition will be held tonight or postponed to a future “snow date.”