Chillin'

Got up at about 6:45 this morning to discover that it had actually dropped to 19 degrees overnight; that's surprising, since it was still 30 degrees when I went to bed at 1 a.m. The sun was still below the horizon line, so the trees were silhouetted in diffuse light as I headed eastward to begin my walk. When I made my first turn to the northwest, though, I discovered just how frigid a fifteen to twenty-mile-per-hour wind can feel in the pre-dawn cold.

Even so, I enjoyed the walk; this was the first morning that truly felt like winter, and I found the change to be invigorating. (As an added treat, I got to see a moment or two of brief snow flurries while I was out walking; the sudden cold managed to squeeze a little bit of moisture out of the overhanging clouds, creating a few moments of "phantom flurries" that sublimated as soon as they fell.