Today has been very nice - spring is certainly in the air.  There has been a chilly wind all day, though, and the sun really didn't get going until around noon, but then it was beautiful outside.  I have no idea what today did to the ice, but yesterday we were at the Rossi's for our wrap-up meeting on the Ice-Out, and Diane told us there had been two snowmobiles out on the pond in spite of a fair amount of water on top of the ice.  She said they were making a wake!  There really isn't a lot of melting showing up yet, but there may be quite a lot going on from underneath.  There are some years when the ice just seems to turn to mush and there is no dramatic opening up of channels or large chunks of it floating around.  This could be one of those years.  I'm guessing it'll be better than a week before the ice goes, and it could be more.  We're in for some rain tonight and warmish weather for a few days, then getting colder to slow things down again.  Hard to tell.  In the meantime, Henretta is logging in tickets as fast as she can - I think she has a few thousand more to go.  As is the norm, most of the tickets come in the last two or three days of the contest.  This year, especially, people waited until the last minute because there has been so little sign of melting at the pond and everyone tries to wait to see if there is any indication at all that will help them make a better pick.  

We took a friend to the airport in Burlington on Saturday and spent some time in the observation tower watching the traffic in and out.  The mountains in the distance were lovely.  Mt. Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak at 4,393 ft., was sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, and just a bit further south, Camel's Hump showed up plainly, too.  I was curious how high Camel's Hump is - from our vantage point it looked as imposing as Mansfield - but I found out it comes in third, along with Mt. Ellen over in Mad River Glen area.  Both are 4,083 ft.  Killington is second highest (4,235 ft.) and Jay is 3,862 ft.  The ski areas have done pretty well this year, and some are still open.  That's Mt. Mansfield in the top picture, and below is Camel's Hump.  We aren't as used to seeing these two peaks from this, their western sides; we can see both plainly from Cabot Plain, but in reverse of these pictures because we are looking at their eastern slopes.  I'm always impressed with the views - from either side.

Turned out the plane our friend was taking to Newark was delayed.  When she tried to find out how long a delay, the only answer was "quite some time."  Later on, another passenger who had his computer with him told us the plane had been delayed at Newark and the return flight out of Burlington was delayed 53 minutes.  By then we'd been waiting quite some time, but finally we saw the plane arriving and it was a quick turnaround once it was on the ground.  There was only time for the ground crew to unload baggage and reload - it took about 15 minutes, I think, and they were back in the air headed back to Newark with our friend on board.  We never did find out why the delay at the Newark end, but we were keeping our fingers crossed our friend would make her connection ok.  We're pretty sure she did, as there was ample time between flights at the NY end.  We enjoyed the trip - Burlington had no snow and there were a few signs of greening grass in the fields along the way there.

Coming back past Mollys Falls Dam, we were disappointed that all that work on Route 2 in that area didn't seem to accomplish much.  Sure, the road is wider, but there are still way too many serious curves.  It's too bad that when they had things so torn up they weren't able to straighten that stretch out.  As it is, it gives the impression you've got a great stretch of road ahead, but then you come into a dangerous curve, just like before.  People not used to the road will likely pick up too much speed in passing lanes and then have panic situations when there's a curve looming at them.  It would be nice to have a decent stretch of road going east/west on Route 2, but I guess it's not going to happen in my lifetime, anyway.  We hardly ever go that way now that we aren't working in Montpelier.  All those years commuting on the old Route 2 were enough to keep us heading east towards St. Johnsbury instead of west except on rare occasions.

Funny no matter how much money is spent on "improving" Route 2, it is still a challenging stretch of highway.  We hope that will change in Danville, though.  There is an article in the Caledonian Record today that says the Route 2 Project in Danville is expected to be finished by July 4th THIS YEAR!  It said there will be lots of tearing up again before everything is permanent along the road; and then there will be "hand work" finishing off the Green and putting final touches in place.  This is good news for people who need to travel Route 2 frequently and especially for residents and merchants in Danville that have had to put up with noise, dust, blasting, power outages and general inconvenience for the past several years.  I hope the new road and the improved Green in the village live up to the hype.  And I hope the July 4th promise is good.

There's a new proposal afoot for schools in Chittenden County that would change the school calendar pretty drastically.  There are lots of arguments, both pro and con, so it will be interesting to see how it goes, IF it is implemented.  Here's an article about it:  School Calendar Changes  
I'm sure if it happens, it will be difficult at first for teachers and parents to adapt, but I expect the students will benefit.  From that point of view, it sounds like a sensible idea; however, teachers are going to miss all that time in the summer to travel, relax, or whatever.  There are other ways schools are changing.  Much as some of us would like to keep the old "readin' writin' and 'rithmetic" thing going, those days are gone forever.  I'm working with a class at Cabot - sending historic information to them, and we're doing it all by e-mail.  Although Bonnie Dannenberg (our historical society president) and I did meet with them one afternoon last week, from here on, what we give them will be by e-mail.  This is a sharp group of students who are all pretty interested in learning more about the history of their town, and it's fun getting to know them a little - but I can't help thinking how different the process is now, in the age of computers.