Wintery Weather in Newport

Thursday a big storm hit New England and blanketed us with 6 inches of snow. The War College actually canceled classes that afternoon, which at the time I smirked at for there was not an indication of precipitation in the air. I figured it was going to be like the few times growing up where school was canceled on the prediction of a snow storm that never came -those were my favorite snow days- but I guess the weather forecasters here are better at their job then back home, for not two hours after they made the announcement, it started to snow and didn't stop until sometime late that night.

As I rushed home, dodging the various traffic accidents (apparently people are no better at driving in the snow then in the South), I made a detour to Walmart where I tried to buy a sled. Of course, they only had a couple of plastic discs, which I bought, figuring something was better than nothing. Friday morning I took Madison for her first sledding experience. The big problem, besides the lack of adequate equipment (a wooden sled with runners would have been ideal), was the lack of hills in this town. I had not thoroughly scouted the area beforehand and found very few hills bigger than what could be found in Kansas. In retrospect, this is not a big surprise, considering Newport is an island on the coast, and we had to drive around for an hour before settling on a very gentle slope near the downtown library. It was a beginner slope even for a first time two year old like Madison, but we were not discouraged and made the most of it. Video is included (hopefully). It did warm to about 40 degrees that afternoon, before dropping back down below freezing that night. This made for prime sledding conditions today with a nice icy layer over the snow. Madison and I also found the only huge hill to sled in this town (I think it must be man made), and we naively took the biggest hill on our first run. We had to bail half way down as we spun backwards and lost steering control (a problem with discs). Walking to the top of the hill, people around us looked at me like I was an insane, clenching my toddler in one arm and a plastic disc in the other; and when we started down the double black diamond hill at breakneck speed, I figured they were right, but we ejected successfully and both were laughing at the bottom. We settled for the nearby lesser hill after that, leaving the "big slope" for the 10 year olds (a wise choice one of them commented as Madison and I walked away).

That afternoon I took Madison to the park behind our house where I would push here across the field as fast as I could and sledding down a very short but steep hill.

Overall, Madison is becoming a very proficient 2 year old in the snow. We are suppose to get more "bad" weather tonight, so I will let you know what that does for our sledding conditions.