Hello Eagle Friends,
As I write this the temperature with wind chill is -50 below zero and it will drop even more during this first Minnesota blizzard for 2008.
I was all about getting up early and getting back before the storm hit. Almost all schools were canceled, starting late, or dismissing early. My daughters school was cancelled so she stayed home with my husband until I returned.
As I drove down the highway the radio announcers were talking about how bad the snow was coming down. I wasn't that far out of Rochester, and I didn't even see a snowflake, yet. Then again, I never experienced those tropical moments of mid-twenties that they announced yesterday. In fact, what was supposed to be a rain-sleet-turning to snow storm, turned into a blizzard.
Blizzard warnings came across the air waves and there I sat driving through them for the second year in a row. However, this year I was already at my project when the announcents came on the radio. MNDOT (Minnsota Department of Transportation) was closing roads, and advising emergency travel only.
I shrugged, geared up, and hiked out to Daedee and Dancer's nest area and upon my arrival I heard them vocalizing to each other, but I couldn't see them. I shot a couple images and it wasn't even a minute later when snowflakes the size of Herbie the Love Bug, began crashing down. In a few minutes time I could no longer see the nest tree, let alone my path out.
Luckily, I knew the area well and every tree, and every broken stump, and every flood brush pile became my constant reference points to get me back to the highway. When I reached my truck I decided I just couldn't just stop and turn around and quit. Once there, I had to finish my project. I promised Dave I'd be back by noon at the latest. I checked my camera's time and it was 10:34 AM.
I could finish the project in an hour, and still get home by 12:15. That was a perfectly acceptable; expectable, "Lisa Time." Never on time, but never too early or too late.
I traveled the back roads but I couldn't see half of them for they were already drifting to a foot or more of snow. I couldn't see a single eagle nest beyond Judy and The Mayor's. There were no eagles gathered around a deer carcass, as a matter of fact, there wasn't a deer carcass in sight either.
As I drove on I couldn't see twenty feet beyond my truck. I proved that when I pulled over and stepped out of my truck and walked fifty feet into the woods to photograph a tree for my tree book. However, when I looked back to the road, I stared into the whiteness that stole my truck from my view.
I followed my snow-covered tracks back out, thinking this was the end of the storm. We were only supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow, and that much had fallen already. Then again, I can't remember one storm this year where the weather was what the weather announcer predicted.
The winds picked up howling with a vengence and the temperatures quickly dropped to -30 below zero. There was a constant, eeire howl through the broken trees and through the flood brush. The usual rustling sound of winds twisting through the leaves, stubborn or still clinging to the tree that nurtured them. Paper thin leaves that didn't fall off last autumn, dry leaves that sounded more like twenty people crumpling tin foil on each side of my head trumpeting through my double-layered hats protecting my ears.
I saw one eagle fly by or maybe he was blowing past me. I watched him or her for about twenty feet before it was swallowed by the blinding, white snow. I stood wondering, "How do the eagles find their way through that snow while flying? If I can't see a tree thirty feet away, how do they fly and not crash into them?" I had to find out.
The snow was deep on the dips and curves of the valley, and I was thankful for non-existent travelers heading my direction. It allowed me time to travel at my pace, "Lisa Style."
I drove up the road and I set up over a pond and watched a couple dozen mallards diving into the icy cold water, unmoved, by it's bite. They'd jump out of one pool, and the horizon would be momentarily brightened with a splash of their bright, orange duck feet as they waddled over the thin ice. One by one, follow-the-leader style, they would jump into a hole on the other side. I guess the plants were greener on the other side, afterall.
I'm sure I shot at least a hundred pictures of these comical ducks, most of them with snow covering the majority of my frames. I watched ten mallards at a time tip their heads into the bone-freezing water, and I watched the other end up go up, curly tails up on the boys, and just white rumps tipped upward on the hens. I watched them bathing and wondered what made them feel a need for a cool bath on such a blustery cold day?
Then I moved on and the roads were frightful. I had never been in a blizzard like this. It was
so awful, I wasn't even sure how I'd get back to Rochester.
I was just leaving when I saw a dozen cardinals off to the side of the road. I pulled over to photograph them, most flew off, but one remained and he casually glanced back at me, and in that glance I could almost feel his wonderment about what I was doing there.
A blue jay came along and frightened them all away. I tell you from experience, if more people would put up blue jays than a scare crow, they may see a better garden.
The roads worsened as I traveled the winding, deepening, drifting, two lane county roads home.
I couldn't see the road 90% of the way. I was down to 35 mph to 45 mph. I was thankful the plows had been out on the highways, however, where the snow plows had been, the roads were already drifting in again.
Next cars and trucks in the opposite lane began sporting their flashers. At first I wondered if it were some new ritual for a funeral procession, but then as I traveled into the blanket of whiteness, I realized the travel was almost non-existant ahead. As I drove along, without warning, in a split-second moment you hear about, there would be a car or truck, only one snow plow, and they were usually half over the center line heading right at me, forcing me to the drifted shoulder to avoid a collision.
On the steep hills, I held my breath, hoping the road would still be there as I went over and continued down into the blinding whiteness. It was like that peak moment, that frozen second when riding on a roller coaster--that moment of fear, exhileration, and the unknown all wrapped into a millisecond of thought as one reaches the top of the roller coaster and begin the descent, that hold-your-breath sensation as you begin dropping into a whirlwind of screams and howls, and a blur of colors. Except all I saw was white and the howls I heard were only from the winds.
When I reached the major highway intersection, I couldn't see if anything was coming either direction, and I remembered that exact feeling from last year, when the exact same thing happened, and I asked myself, "Haven't you learned anything?"
I waited, and tried to hear for the approach of a semi, or car, or truck. Nothing. I tried looking, I should have tried my infrared on my camera. I pulled out and that's the only time my truck did 0-55 in three seconds this entire journey.
I drove and drove, and I swore I should have been home by now. I flipped my Joyce Meyer tape over
and listened, letting her voice and God's promises calm me and take the road from here.
The road worsened still. There was a steady line of vehicles exiting Rochester, and I knew that it must be even worse ahead.
I was so glad to reach the city limits I could only have empathy for all the vehicles in the other lane heading into the storm, and drifting roads ahead of them.
There was a twenty car pile up not far from me, and I was glad not to be on that highway. The major highways were being closed down for blizzard conditions as I turned the corner and drove down my street.
I honked as I pulled in the drive way, knowing Dave and Em were probably worried sick about me, and it was going to take ten minutes to get my snow gear, my blizzard-wear off. I didn't know it was nearly 1 PM, and it took me an hour and a half to drive 45 minutes. But I was home, safe, protected on this journey.
I went upstairs into some thankful arms. "We were praying for you," my little girl hugged me. "What took you so long?"
"You'll see." I smiled back.
Blizzard is in effect through tomorrow. I don't know how bad the roads will be, but I will
give it my best effort. God-willing I'll get there and back.
In weather like this you pray a lot. It keeps you close to God, and you hope your boots keep your feet warm, and that your vehicle will start. I joke that I'm field-tested to -70 below with wind chill. I guess I'm going to have to put my camera to my words as I head out in the minus something tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to Day 22.
See you on the journey,
Lisa
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