We had to dash to St. Johnsbury this afternoon, and as we left the rain was just changing over to snow - you know how it is, instead of rain drops on the windshield there are big splotches of slush hitting. In St. Johnsbury, even in Danville, it was raining; but about an hour later when we stopped in West Danville at the post office, the temperature was about 35 and there was the sleet again, plus the wind was blowing a gale. No surprise there, the wind always blows in W. Danville.

We stopped at George and Judy Anderson's and Judy had just come from Barre. She said it was snowing hard as they were coming up Drew Hill (just past Goodrich's Maple Farm) in East Cabot. When we got home, there was snow on the ground even though the thermometers are reading 34. I just went onto the front deck to take this picture and the wind nearly took the storm door out of my hand. The ground is white and it looked like a blizzard. Here's the photo. It's beginning to look a lot like November, finally.

When we were at the post office, we bumped into Ted Chase and his friend, Susie, who is visiting from Washington state. Ted reminded me of the sunset picture he sent to me in October. Apparently he'd missed it (October 20 blog entry), so I'm going to post it again. Like I told him, it'll be a while before we see one like that again, so it's worth putting up a second time. He thought I hadn't posted it, but like I told him, I really appreciate getting photos from folks around the lake (and other places) and like to have the variety of shots - Fred and I can't be everywhere! so I was pretty sure his had been on. Quite a contrast - I bet his October sunset was taken a little later in the day than my late afternoon November snowstorm above, and what a contrast! At 4:30 when I snapped my snow picture, it was almost completely dark. Another three weeks will bring the shortest day of the year and we'll probably be well blanketed in snow. We'll be ready for it, though.

Traveling tonight and tomorrow may be a little rough going on the highways in our area, so we're hoping people who need to travel have either left early or have made provisions to prolong their stay until Sunday or Monday. All too often holiday travelers aren't fully prepared for snowy, slippery road conditions and don't realize the dangers. Even if most of us Vermonters are prepared with proper snow tires and travel at a sensible speed, others on the road can pose a danger. Travel at a safe speed, allow plenty of time, and pay attention to road conditions.