We got hammered with some pretty good winter weather here in Hampton Roads, below freezing temperatures for several days followed by 5-6 inches of snow followed by sleet, ice and freezing rain. While not New England, and believe me I am not complaining this is a bit much for our local resources. VDOT and the local city workers are doing a good job clearing the main roads, but secondary roads as well as business, government and school parking lots are a mess.
The road network on the base where I work dates from when it was built in WWII. It is now the site of a number of Navy, Marine, Joint and NATO headquarters, along with the Staff College. It takes forever to clear everything as the roads are narrow, developed land at a premium and nowhere to put the snow and ice. As a result, we were shut down yesterday and today. But we are not alone, school districts, colleges, businesses throughout the area are either shut down or running at the bare minimum capacity. Such as life in the coastal mid-Altantic. I would hate to see what would happen if we experienced what Boston and New England are going through.
Tonight, more snow in the forecast followed by extreme cold the next two days before things start warming over the weekend.
But the snow days have allowed me to have some daddy-puppy bonding time with the newest member of our little family, Izzy Bella.
Izzy is a Papillon and she and her breeder flew here yesterday from South Dakota. Izzy has already adapted and our two other girls, Molly our nearly 14 year old Papillon Dachshund mix, and Minnie our three year old Papillon are as well to having a new little sister. By the way, Izzy’s breeder has two boys still unspoken for, and if you want I can help you get in touch with her.
If you don’t know Papillons, they are a wonderful breed. They are in the top ten breeds for intelligence, very smart, very sweet, very playful and funny and great companions or therapy dogs. Molly, though only half-Papillon helped keep me alive during the worst of my PTSD times after Iraq. If either of us are having a bad day it is hard to be depressed as Minnie won’t let that happen.
For little dogs they are great dogs for guys. I am amazed at all the pictures on the Facebook Papillon sites of big brawny men with these dogs. They are playful, funny and tough.
Anyway, I digress. I hope you have a good day wherever you are and look for some more scintillating commentary, hard hitting articles and of course a lot of history on the site in the coming days.
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 
Hi Steve, What a cute picture of you and Izzy, and I almost called to see if you all were getting that terrible Polar Vortex cold and snow, and now we know. I’ve heard from everyone in Huntington, and they are all snowed in and freezing and even Joe isn’t getting out. Larry says that Nashville is the same and they have quite a bit of the bitter cold and snow also there in Atlanta. I think it was terrible back in 1957 when we got snowed in and so much cold, but I don’t remember another spell as bad as this one. We are in such bad shape they had to cancel a ski and snow weekend up at Tahoe as there is not enough snow, and people are so depressed as we won’t have water to even drink if this keeps up and the poor farmers can’t have any crops unless there would be another “miracle March” but it seems to be blocked by all that cold air. Anyway, take care and stay well, and love to all of you, Mom
You and me both. Disclaimer. This picture is 6 years ago before my beard and before Charlie grew to 25 lbs.
Thankfully our baby will top out at about 10 pounds