Winter Blunder Land & points north.

Alrighty then, I'm back in NYS and the weather could be worse but it ain't too bad overall. Yeah its cold, and icey and snowy and dreary and such but like a person once said 'Hey it could be worse'. That and I've been in worse, riding the open jump seats of the Fire Engine at Stewart Army Subpost in the dead of winter to the Marine Barracks for a sprinkler activation; Cold enough to pop the head in an upper floor room that night. Sleeping or trying to at least in a old Army issue sleeping bag in Hoenfelds Germany in January; Working on gasoline operated equipment while at Ft. Drum outdoors at night in January. So I ain't complaining as I've a roof over my head at night and by the end of february I should be running back south.

The run up the coast was easy enough on Monday, Overnighted near the 106 mile marker in North carolina and started early Tuesday morning for NY state. At the northbound junction of 295/95 in Virginia just north of Richmond traffic came to a crawl due to the usual ignorant southern driving technique of driving fast in poor conditions Took about an hour and a half to reach King's Dominion Exit and what seemed almost as long to get to Rt 207/ Ft. A.P. Hill exit. There I decided to top off my fuel tank before heading north again.

As for running north on I-95 that was ruled out when I heard sirens and watched two fire engines head north on I-95. I wasn't about to try my luck not knowing if they were responding to an incident in the N or S bound lanes. So i headed east on 207 til I reached U.S. 301 and took that N through what was left of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware to the NJ turnpike. The delays on Virginia were enough to cause me to catch the evening rush hour in jersey which means you get off the interstate and take the secondary roads to get by traffic of you take a 60 mile loop around on 287 to pick up Rt 17 to 32 to 107 and 9W to catch the Beacon/Newburgh bridge. Either way ends up taking about the same amount of time depending upon traffic conditions.

So as I said I'm back in NY for a little while and I've some work to keep me busy for now. Blood draw for my lab work up at the VA medical Center in Castle Point, Tax filings, Dental appointments and VA appointments in February. Along with doing some down & dirty Auto repairs on my brother's plow vehicle, and other brother's gasoline powered tools. So I won't be lacking for things to do between between now and my last medical appointment the end of february. I do need to consider changing the months of my annual visit to April and October; That way I can winter in the south and summer in the north.

OK some more photos from the deep south.