Anatomy of a Nor’easter

Posted on March 15, 2017March 15, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 4 Comments

Ask any weather forecaster, there is a major storm on the way. 18-24 inches of snow, high winds with gusts up to 70 miles per hour and torrential rains once the storm switches gears.

Wide spread power outages are predicted.

6:30 am my alarm goes off. Is it snowing yet? Should I work from home or risk going into the office. I peek out the window. Nothing right now but there is a slight dusting. Must have snowed and stopped. I turn on the TV. Dire warnings. School closings. Stay off the roads!

8:30 am. The snow started up again. I’ve decided to work from home, not because it so bad now but because I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back home at the end of the day. It’s non-stop coverage of the storm… each prediction more dire than the last. Its like there is no other news in the world today. Even my bank has closed all of the branches!

9:30 am The very fine snow has really increased. No fat, fluffy flakes here. The wind has picked up significantly. The forecasters are saying that the rain/snow line has changed so southeastern New England may get more rain than snow. Its raining on Cape Cod now. The blizzard warning from Boston south has been dropped.

10:30 am. Not much change. Still snowing. First plows just went by to clear the roads

11:30 am The snow is really starting to accumulate and the wind is howling now.

1:45 pm Looks like the change over to rain/sleet has begun.

3:30 I think the worst is over. The wind has let up and it’s just rain now. Coming down hard but still just rain.

No where near the 18-24 inches predicted. Just another day in New England.

What Happened to Spring?

Posted on March 11, 2017March 11, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 2 Comments

Massachusetts is in the Northern Hemisphere and that means that meteorological spring started on March 1. Anyone who lives north of the Mason-Dixon Line knows that you still get snow storms in March in Massachusetts, Heck, you get them in May! But we just had a week of record breaking heat. I’m not ready to go back to winter.

I really don’t like winter. I don’t know how I ever found playing in the snow fun, even as a kid. Does getting frozen and wet really sound like fun? Growing up in the Adirondack mountains we used to get some major snow storms. Often there’d be a thaw and then another freeze and we’d get an ice crust thick enough to walk on…until you broke through. I came home many times not only cold but bleeding from being cut and scraped on the ice crust. No I really don’t like winter.

So the warm weather has fled and the snow came in during the wee hours of the morning. I thought it would stop after an inch or two but it snowed all day.

It wasn’t until around 5 pm that the snow came to a stop and the sun came out. Just in time to set but it made the snow covered trees look golden in the afternoon light.

By the time I got home after work I was feeling a bit kinder toward the snow. It was really pretty.

I guess I have to get used to it. We are headed into a record cold weekend and another storm by Tuesday. I guess winter isn’t ready to give up quite yet.

Brrrr Its Cold!

Posted on March 6, 2017March 6, 2017 by Dusty Roads | 11 Comments

I’m not sure where all of you are from. I’m sure I’ve got some followers from warm, sunny locations but here in New England winter has returned with a vengeance. Last week we had record high temps, beautiful spring weather. (Take that Punxsutawney Phil!) but the groundhog was right after all! This weekend brought an Arctic Blast that left us all shivering in our boots. High winds added to the cold temps by driving new record lows with the wind chill added in. Its been the coldest weekend of this winter.

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To go along with the miserable cold, I caught a cold. I’ve done so well this year too! This development left me with a dilemma. I wanted to get out in the area to find some new things to tell you about but I was sneezing and felt miserable so I didn’t want to be out in the cold.

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I considered (very seriously) driving to Essex Junction, Vermont for the Vermont Flower show. It would be inside so I’d be warm and I thought we could all use some flowers to offset this cold blast.

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My hesitation came from the fact that it would be a 4 hour drive and this cold was kicking my butt. It had drained so much energy that every time I sat down for 5 minutes I fell asleep. So after much internal debate I took a pass. I spent the weekend bundled in a fluffy throw in my recliner watching travel programs. Or maybe I should say sleeping through travel programs.

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(Sorry I can’t use a picture of me because my arm isn’t long enough for the selfie but this one pretty much sums it up)

I fell asleep watching a program about Hawaii only to wake up to Andrew Zimmern swallowing some horrible looking thing he consider food on an episode of “Bizarre Foods”. Sorry Andrew, I find your show extremely cringe-worthy.

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To make sure the weekend wasn’t a total loss I signed up for a webinar at 3 pm on Sunday about Travel Writing. At 2 pm I set up my laptop, got a pad and pen and a bottle of water. I was ready. I sat back to wait and promptly fell asleep! I woke up at 3:15 having missed the first 15 minutes. Luckily it will be posted online until Tuesday so I can watch it again to see what I missed.

Since this blog pretends to be a travel blog (most of the time) I thought I might get some good tips to improve my content. At the least it got me thinking. I got some good ideas about finding local things to share. So cold or not, the weekend wasn’t a total loss.

D.T. Fleming Beach Park

Posted on February 10, 2017February 10, 2017 by Dusty Roads

The sun came back out after that pretty amazing rain storm. Wind and torrential rains and five minutes later, sunshine. Wow!

Since the day looked to be a good one, I took off north on Rt 30. I wanted to see if any surfers were out. If there were rip tides it would probably be quiet but it was worth taking a look.

I wasn’t sure I’d remember the exact turn off so when I spotted a left I took it. Immediately I knew this wasn’t the one. This was a paved road. The one I was looking for is a pretty rugged dirt road.

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I decided to see where this road went before I turned around. The sign said D.T. Fleming Beach Park, voted best beach in 2006. There was a rest room and maybe a bath house for changing???Also a life guard stand.

The beach seemed pretty popular. More and more people were coming while I was there. I suppose once the weather lifted everyone headed for the beach. You could see the weather was still very unsettled as rain squalls passed in the distance.

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I was surprised that so many children were there. Don’t they have school?

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The beach was certainly a pretty little beach. I found myself thinking that if these kids could handle the surf here maybe I could too.

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I’ll have to think about it after I get my whale picture.

Monday Morning, Can’t trust that day

Posted on February 9, 2017February 9, 2017 by Dusty Roads

Monday morning, sometimes it just turns out that way (The Mamas and the Papas)

I woke up bright and early Monday morning. The weather report had said a storm was rolling in with high seas, rain and winds. Well it was certainly windy last night. With that in mind I thought after breakfast I’d give the GPS another chance. A folder with a bunch of GPS tours came with the unit. I could drive around and see if the weather cleared. My first whale watch wasn’t scheduled until Wednesday.

I sat at the table watching the sunrise. Maybe its because I was on the top floor but I had a lot more birds visit than when we were here in November. Oh the ever present Mynas were there but so were little finchy type birds including a pair of Redheads.

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While I was kicking back I got a rather uncomfortable feeling. The meds I take for diabetes have the unpleasant side effect of making me prone to UTI’s. Now if I were at home such a development would be handled with a quick call to my doctor but she’s 3000 miles away!

To try to keep the situation under control at home I’ve switched to cranberry juice instead of orange juice. Luckily that was what I picked up at the TIMES grocery store last night. So out came the big glass and I rapidly downed 2 big glasses. My fingers are crossed that I caught it in time. I refuse to let a illness sideline me on this trip!

But back to my view from the pent house, I’ve heard we can see the whales from here and I’ve been watching all morning. So far nothing but I’ve got my binoculars handy in case.

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