Mad(ison)

Yesterday we went with Tom and Barb Baker and a young friend of theirs to the model railroad show in Madison. It was huge, lots of large layouts in different sizes and gauges as well as vendors. The Riverside & Great Northern and the Dells Live Steamers & Model Engineers were there, two of the groups Tom works with. He bought some more rolling stock (cars) for his set and we all wandered around looking at the layouts for several hours. Some were quite detailed, including one that had a firetruck spraying water into a smoking house. One thing that struck us as odd was that people seemed to put less detail work into the larger trains and layouts than they did with the smaller ones. As a result, the large trains looked like toys while the small sets looked like actual trains. I would have thought it would be easier to do details on the larger models, but what do I know?

The weather was great: sunny all day. As I told Mama, one sign of the difference between living here and living in Texas is that the weatherman Friday night said, "Tomorrow it will be sunny and 27 degrees. A great day to be outside!"

Today is not a great day to be outside. Another winter storm began before daybreak, and we woke to icy sidewalks and falling snow. Predictions now are from 9 to 13 inches in this area by the time it ends at midnight. It being a Sunday, instead of school closings they are announcing all the church cancellations.

The counties just north of us are under an official blizzard warning. A blizzard is not just a heavy snowstorm. The National Weather Service defines a blizzard as sustained 35 mph winds which leads to blowing snow and causes visibilities of ¼ mile or less, lasting for at least 3 hours. Temperature is not taken into consideration when issuing a blizzard warning, but the nature of these storms are such that cold air is often present when the other criteria are met. We are expecting temperatures in the teens and twenties with winds of up to only twenty miles an hour at times.

My friend Joe from Iowa sent me a picture of a snow sculpture a friend of his had made expressing his feelings about winter in Wisconsin. Since I said I would not allow foul language on this blog, I guess I better not post the picture either.