Then and Now

The headline of one of the articles in this morning's Dayton Daily New was Great Blizzard of 1978 Brought Heavy Snow, Blizzard of Good Deeds.

Back in 1978 Denny and I hadn't met yet--he was a detective with the police department and I was a stay at home mom with a 9-month old son. He has memories of going out on the street assisting people, while mine are of calling my elderly neighbors to check on them and see if they needed anything, while Darby and I stayed warm and snug in our home. Our alley was covered with ten foot drifts of snow so my car was inaccessible and Darby's dad had to abandon his car out on the main roadway and trudge home from work that day, but we had food and power so we were fortunate.

The southern part of Ohio rarely gets weather like that, but a couple years ago while we were back in Ohio for Christmas we had that 21 inch snowfall in 24 hours. Which is precisely why Denny and I decided to spend our winters where the ambient temperatures allow for shorts and tee shirts in January and our bedroom windows can be opened to catch the nighttime breezes.


Eventually we got out to shovel the sidewalks, which was much easier to do in my 20s than it is now in my 50s. And yes, the Christmas lights were still up around the porch.


A much preferred method of being outside during the winter months is wandering the streets of Tombstone, people and cowboy-watching.


Geocaching has taken us pretty far afield and keeps us active when others back east are still bundled up against the cold. These are the mountains within the Rockhound State Park near Deming, New Mexico.


Quite frankly, I much prefer having to watch for rattlesnakes while geocaching in the desert near Apache Junction than shoveling snow.


Here we were working our way towards those rocks at the top of the picture to find another geocache in the Rockhound State Park in Deming, New Mexico. And on the way back to our campground we treated ourselves to a wine tasting at the nearby St. Clair Vineyards.


Instead of turning up the thermostat, here we're geocaching outside of St. David, Arizona. The scene you see is an area featured in some of the John Wayne "McClintock" movies. Far off the beaten track, it's an area we never would have discovered by ourselves.


Sitting outside to watch the sun rise in March is not something I would do in Ohio, but in Needles, California I was comfortable in a sweatshirt and jeans. Need I say more?