Pogonip'ed

Reno's been covered in freezing fog for the last week and a half. The fog is the thick pea soup stuff that renders car headlights useless. The amazing part about this fog, which is covering up what's left of our big snow, is not the fact that its hung around for so long but that it's creating ice formations on everything it contacts.

Pogonip is the Indian name for freezing fog. Each morning a 1/2 inch layer of fine ice crystals blanket everything in the Truckee river valley. The rime grow like cauliflower on the snow banks and like spiky snowflakes on the plants and trees. Saturday morning I went out for a 25 minute run and returned with ice crystals sprouting along the folds of my jacket. Wild stuff!

There's some good news to report. Ting took her first snowboarding lessons on Sunday. She's good the black and blue bruises to prove it! We headed up to Diamond Peak for a morning of instruction. Our coach looked to be no more then 18 or 19 years old and explained how we just needed to flow with the board. Good stuff!

The other semi-promising news is that we got an offer on our place. Assuming things go well in the 5 day wait period and home inspection, we'll finally have our condo under contract. It makes me a little sad yet it ends a pretty stressful period in our life.

Storm of the Century

It's been snowing in Reno for the past four days. I'm standing at a bus stop on snow that's covering a park bench which I'd normally sit on. Across the way a giant mound of show is piled up in front of the Taco Bell on Mae Anne Street. The pile is so high that, even though I'm at eye level with the restaurant, I can only see the arched purple/pink logo of their sign on the roof. It's 5:45am and dark except for the soft falling flakes of snow. The few cars that pass by have chains on their tires for winter travel. Some of the chains pound the thick, icy veneer on the streets like a jack hammer. Other cars with loose chains ring with a sound resembling violently shaken sleigh bells.

Several days ago the Mt. Rose Website listed the upcoming storm as "Winter's white wrath". They weren't kidding. We got approximately 4 Ft. of snow in Reno. With rain on Monday reducing the snowpack to about 3 Ft. throughout most of the valley. Up in the mountains the snow at some resorts is up to 20 Ft. high. The ski resorts are actually beginning to complain about too much snow!

It looks like the Sierra Nevada's have found out about our little desert secret in Reno and have started to spill their white precipitation into the valley. Two storms, one originating from southern California and one swooping down from the Pacific Northwest have converged between Sacramento and Reno to form the worst storm in almost a century (according to the local paper). I ventured out with the camera over the weekend to take a few pictures. Enjoy! (The later part of this week bring single digit temperatures).




Zoe running through a canyon of snow with Ting chasing


The last we saw of our picnic table


Some of these icicles are 4 to 5 foot in length


The snow was heavy enough to collapse all the carports in our apt complex

Holiday Wrap Up

It felt good to go home to Chicago over Christmas. Flying in on Christmas Eve I looked down and followed the street lights of the great diagonal avenues emanating from the Loop - Ogden, Milwaukee, Lincoln, Clark, etc. It all still looked familiar. After touching down at O'Hare I raced from the terminal to the nearest restroom. O'Hare has the most unique toilet seats of any public restroom you'll ever visit (those of you who frequent O'Hare know what I mean). Each seat has a tubular sheet of film that rotates around the seat each time a new bottom appears. It's sort of a slippery sensation like sitting on a plastic shopping bag. I knew I was home!

Ting and I would like to say thanks to all our family and friends that made our visit so enjoyable. Thanks to Karen, Nimmi, and Scott for being great neighbors and hosting a festive Hannamas Party. Thanks to John and Dee for carting us all over town since we didn't have a car. Many thanks to Michelle and Sharon for keeping an eye on Zoe while we moved furniture and cavorted around our old stomping grounds. Thanks to Martin and Lee for filling up our bellies with the food we had been longing for. And finally thanks to Ricky for moving into our place and keeping a watchful eye on our stuff. All of you truly made our holiday real. We appreciate that!

Now most of you know that I had to head back to work while Ting and Zoe stayed in Chicago over the week between Christmas and New Years off. On Thursday the snow started falling in Reno. It didn't stop until New Years day afternoon, leaving a good 2 feet of snow in the valley and 6 feet in the mountains. This gave me the perfect chance to try some snowshoeing in the foothills above Reno. Enjoy!



Virgin Snow at the top of the Tom Cooke Mountain Bike Trails



My co-worker Andy Szeto surveying our options



A riverbed of powder



A backcountry snowboarder tests the powder