New England Archives

The New England Blizzard of 2013 is winding down. The storm centers are starting to compare past major storms to this one. My favorite storm was the Blizzard of ’78 but I’d say this one was handled much better. With a driving ban starting yesterday at 4 pm they avoided having cars stuck on the expressway and stranded drivers which was one of the most horrific memories from ’78. The storm surges are still battering the coast with widespread evacuations but I haven’t heard too many reports of homes being washed into the sea the way they were in ’78.

I was a property insurance adjuster in 1978 so had first hand exposure to the devastation. Now in 2013 I’m a dispatcher for a telecommunication company so still on the front lines, just in a different way.

Here are some pictures from 10:30 last night.

Our Entryway door at the condo in Taunton

Plowing the parking lot

The tree in front of out building

And then 9 am this morning.

Still snowing

Nice job clearing our walk way

And the stairs but what happens at the bottom???

Wake me up when it’s spring.

Where’s my car?

I was mentioning to one of my co-workers that I would love to have an Irish post for St. Patrick’s day next year and she said she knew someone who was going to Ireland. She said one of our co-workers from another department was going over for about 2 weeks. I asked if she thought he’d let me get an interview to post and she said if she spoke to him, she’d ask.

Well, she got back to me and said his exact words were…Bring it on! So we’ll have a real Irish adventure to look forward to!

The title for today’s post is Another Challenge. When I was at the AAA Marketplace I stopped by the National Parks booth. I am a great fan of the National Parks. I’ve mentioned before that I collect the stamps in the National Parks Passport. Well they have a regional Passport. So I accepted one. I just got around to reading it and it covers National Parks in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts , Connecticut and Rhode Island. Altogether there are 23 parks listed in the New England Passport. The challenge is that to complete the book you have to visit all of them before December 31, 2011. If I succeed I will get the 25^th Anniversary Passport.

Well, I love a challenge and some of these parks are close together so I may be able to go to more than one in a day but Acadia National Park in Maine is a hike. I’ve had it on my list for a couple of years now. I really think it deserves more that a “quick hit” so I’m going to have to do some planning to get there before the end of this year.

I wonder what the weather is going to be like on Wednesday. If this snow clears I might just head down to the Cape. I love Cape Cod and that’s where I can collect the stamp for the Cape Cod National Seashore.

www.nps.gov

But for now I will sign off. I need to check airfares so Sandy and I can book our flight to Phoenix.