Friday, April 11, 2008

Missin' in Blizzard

My husband is in Duluth Minnesota at the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, the Mason's. 500 or so people gather from across the state for this annual convention to learn, conduct business, and also there are fun social activities-black tie dinners with entertainment etc.

So he left yesterday. I was a bit concerned, as there was a storm front coming in, and you know how the goofy weather people are -- "Oh anywhere from 4 to 6 inches of snow, more to the north part of the metro 10-12 inches." Then it turns out to be rain wind and no accumulated snow. But lots of people wondering and worrying. And the weather professionals are feeding on this. In our house we call it "weather terrorism."

So there was a front coming, and oh it was stalling no it was coming heading straight for where he was driving. Imagine driving on an isolated highway in the boring flat plains of Minnesota. Yet really not so boring if the wind is at 30mph and there is sleet and the highway is elevated over the farmland around you. That is just treacherous.

So he wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. Radar looked OK. Off he went. He called later to say that he had arrived and there wasn't any precipitation at all. NO PRECIPITATION! Wow the weather guys were really off. Here in Mpls we had strong winds, rain snow and sleet and potentially very very hazardous driving conditions as the evening went on and temperatures lowered to freezing and below. But we were hunkered and fine, didn't need to drive anywhere. (OK actually I arranged rides home for 2 of the girls who had activities so OTHER people were out driving in the terrible weather).

So TODAY I get a message from hubby. There were straightline winds and basically blizzard conditions. I do not know how much snow they got. But they have no power-thankfully the hotel or facility where they are has generator power. Crazy!!

Will this winter ever end??

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Freemasons?

thismngardener said...

Yawohl-are you familiar with them?

Anonymous said...

Not really familiar, but I have very close friends in Switzerland who are members of the Odd Fellows- and Odd Ladies lodges. I would never become a member of these or freemasons but I guess there are many respectable ppl in there, as f.ex. Irving Berlin was - I really adore this man.

Cheers, Chris.