Snow brings new perspective

We spent the first weekend of December with fellow Comanche Pilots touring wineries near Portland and McMinnville's Evergreen Aviation Museum (home of Howard Hughe's "Spruce Goose"). The highlight of the next week was a one day Steelhead fishing trip with Steve Pettit on the Clearwater River above Lewiston. I caught and kept a large hatchery female, and threw back an even bigger wild male. Great fun! It was unseasonably warm that day, but winter arrived with a bang a couple of days later with temperatures around 0 F and 28 mph winds, followed by a series of snow storms, that have only really let up in the last week! So for the second winter in a row we're inundated with snow. Getting lots of shoveling exercise and some wonderful cross country and downhill skiing.
I was working again in Auburn WA from the 22nd of December to the 2nd of January, but had the 25th-28th off and made it home for Christmas, despite the ice and snow covered highways. None of the kids made it for our turkey dinner, but we still had a good crowd with our friends the Kohut's and Deutchman's.
My first week working in Great Falls starts next Monday. After that I'll be home for two weeks before returning to Bethesda for my 9 month check-up the first week of February. Shoveling the car out after the plow went by the other day, I wondered how I'll manage this kind of winter when I'm 85. And then it occurred to me what a nice quandary to even be worrying about being 85 someday!

Phil