A January thaw

After 25-ish years in California, it's nice to experience real weather here in Iowa. (Yeah, right, I hear you say -- if you say that three times fast, you'll believe it!) But after having snow on the ground for the whole month of December, we've been having a January thaw. The picture shows the city hiking/cycling path behind our house in late December (left) and today (right), after several days of above-freezing temperatures. We've been looking forward to having enough snow on the ground for some sledding when Rob (our older son on Steve's side) visits next week -- but what do you know, there is some snow forecast for later this week. I do like a real winter, and an Iowa winter is certainly real, but not really too bad. We can run errands or do business whenever we can get out, and with few exceptions we can get out only when we want -- retirement has its advantages!