Well, whaddaya know. We woke up this morning with two inches of snow painting the valley brilliant white. The forecast had hinted at a chance of snow, but it said, “Less than a half inch accumulation.”  We drove down in the Honda–the first trip this year not in the four-wheel drive Toyota. We never imagined we would get serious snow!  So we decided not to bug back to Bend real fast as we had planned so we could give the snow time to melt away with the predicted rain.  However, the forecasted rain remained snow and by noon we had FOUR inches; so much for weather reports.

 

Under the snow was slick mud. Eventually we had to attempt to get back to town so Bob gave it a test run to see if there was a chance of us getting out. He got stuck in less than 50 yards. I helped him get unstuck–the slippery mud beneath the snow was the main culprit–then he put chains on the front tires and that did the trick.

 

We didn’t get home until early evening but we agreed we were thankful for the snow. It was lovely to see one last mention of winter, it tested our skills, and it forced us to spend the whole day at the ranch. Though we did do some business work we mostly lazed around reading and talking and drinking tea.