Four Weeks Post Surgery: Cold and Snowy in Maine as we Resupply

Deb in front of her Maine house and gazebo

Couldn't stay away from the snow!  Chris and I made a quick trip to Maine to resupply for the upcoming speaking tour in Florida and sailing trip to Guatemala.

What do you do when you need to resupply and winterize your house and change out the snowtires and get your car inspected and registered?  How about a road trip from Georgia to Maine and then back?

Chris at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

We did a quick trip home, stopping along the way to visit friends and family.  It was great fun staying with Debbie and Ted Grell in the frozen land on Virginia Beach, where there was deep snow covered by a thick layer of frozen rain.  As Debbie said, "This should never happen in a place with "beach" in the name."

We went across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, and stopped to take some pictures.  The waves on the bay were so steep and close together that just thinking about kayaking out there made me shudder.

Wide swath of frozen surf on Fisherman's Island

At the other end of the bridge were wide beaches with miles of frozen surf, and pilings with thick coverings of ice.  This is why I didn't kayak here in February!

The palm trees look so unhappy and out of place!

On Virgina's Chincoteague Island the kayaks were waiting, but no takers around.  The scrimpy palm trees looked so out of place in the snow.  Looks like there were planted here, well north of their natural range, to give the beach more appeal, but the illusion fails in the snow.

Our bedroom window view when we arrived home in Maine

Fortunately, we didn't have to drive in snow until the last few minutes in Maine.  It was good to see our house still standing and not caved in from the snow on the roof.  The temperatures were cold - 14 below overnight - but the only addition to my kayaking clothing layers I needed was my wool snow boots.  Maybe I'm carrying too many layers in the kayak?

I enjoyed being home and seeing the familiar winter view out of our bedroom window: snow and a little sliver of view of the trees.  Seeing friends and neighbors was even better.  We were only home for four days, but the social calendar included: a film and discussion of a climate change film; a reading of African American poetry; a town meeting about homeowners banding together to put up shared solar power systems; and a Rotary Club party.  The party included playing the game where each person writes something no-one knows about them, and then guessing who write each.  We know each other so well that it took no more than two guesses to zero in on the correct person.  I love living in such a great small town!

I'm getting better day by day, with more mobility and less pain every day.  I can now imagine being fully recovered!  Also, I now realize how much pain I was in for months before the surgery.  I feel so much younger now!

As we drained the water in the house and turned off the heat, I took a final photo from the bedroom window, and to show the icicles formed from the little bit of heat escaping through the roof and the sublimation of  the snow over our four days at home.

Sublimation and icicles

Now the question is whether we can drive out of the snow area now that we've taken off our snow tires.