Best Laid Plans

     We had it all figured out. We were retiring from our high-tax state to a lower-tax state (Pennsylvania is not that low, but it's lower than New York). But we were still staying relatively near our old home and our old friends. Still staying in the Northeast, where we wanted to live.

     But we were also going to a slightly milder climate. Not much; but some. The average daily high temperature in March in our old town is 48 degrees, the average low 29 degrees. In our new town in Pennsylvania, the average high in March is 51 degrees, with an average low of 31. It's just enough so summer and fall last a week or two longer, and spring comes a week or two earlier.

     And then, the plan was, we would go away for at least part of the winter. This year I left in mid-January, after one fairly major snowstorm which found me helping to shovel my neighbor's driveway so it wouldn't get flooded when the next storm arrived, a storm that was predicted to bring rain. So by then I'd seen my one picture-perfect snowstorm. That was enough.

     I left on January 14. Then, come the end of February, B and I started making plans to go back home. We heard about the big storm, Riley, that was wreaking havoc in the Northeast last Friday and Saturday. No problem. We were planning to leave Friday and get home Saturday. Instead, we delayed for a day and let the last of winter blow itself off without us. You see, just as we planned.

     We watched as we drove north, seeing signs of spring all through North Carolina, Virginia, and even into Maryland. They'd petered out by the time we got to Delaware, and they were gone by the time we arrived home.

View this morning from our front door

     There were plenty of tree limbs down from the storm, and we heard that much of the town had lost electricity for somewhere between 24 and 48 hours. But we woke up Monday morning and the sun was shining. We even saw a few daffodils poking up in the side garden. It was warm, and we knew spring was right behind us, and would follow us up north in no time. We'd timed it perfectly.

     Or so we thought.

     And then comes Quinn. We woke up this morning to three or four inches of snow on the ground, and more to come. The driveways and walkways are covered. The street is a slushy mess. More tree limbs litter the yard, torn down by the wind and the heavy, wet snow. It looks like the middle of winter here today. Our only consolation: Here we're expected to get 6 - 9 inches of snow. Back in our old hometown in New York they're predicting 12 - 16 inches.

     And so I reflect back on my college days as an English major, summoning up Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind . . .  "Oh Wind/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"