And the Snow still Lingers

We still have plenty of snow here on the ground in Virginia but the roads are now clear and although I love the snow, I'm ready to be able to get outdoors now without trumping through wet white stuff or sticky brown stuff. There is so much mud around from the melt off that hikes are pretty much impossible. So I had decided this weekend would be a relatively inactive one. I'd discovered through a friend that we still have a Blockbusters in Centreville so I zipped over there to see what deals were on hand. I was ecstatic to get 4 great movies for $20:
1)  Pirate Radio - absolutely superb movie I saw on the big screen with 3 hunks starring, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in that order ( hunk rating that is not order of appearance). The movie is about Radio Caroline, a pirate rock and roll station that broadcast illegally from a ship off the English coast, starting in the 60's. Brilliant soundtrack.

2)  Angels and Demons - movie of Dan Brown's book referring to the Illuminati. Been wanting to see this for yonks. The film was good but not as tense as the book.

3)  The Soloist - another movie I've been wanting to see for ages. Wonderful story but the film dragged, but it has inspired me to get the book.

4)  Taking Woodstock - saw this one on the big screen too. Fantastic movie with an awesome soundtrack and the most realist acid trip I've seen done on the screen. This is the only one I didn't watch over the weekend.

Although I spent a lot of Saturday watching DVDs, I had to get some fresh air so I patched up Stuart. He got a boo boo from a little accident we had when the snow came down.

Then off to the bookstore and the Mall but on the way, I stopped to grab a few shots of the sun setting on Manassas Battlefields.

On Sunday after a long lie in with Kota, I grabbed the camera again to go to a local park to shoot some photos of the snow before it disappears for good. Not sure if we'll get more this winter but I didn't want to regret not grabbing the moment.

I was not surprised to find that I was the only one there. Plenty of traffic whizzing past on the roads here and plenty of cars in the Mall parking lots but nobody wanting to enjoy the solitude of this wintery paradise with cardinals and kestrels greeting me as I trudged under the trees.

The snow was melting fast with droplets of water sparking like crystals on the branches. It was great to plod through the woods but I had to be careful of not losing my way. I'm very familiar with this park yet with the paths hidden, the landscape wasn't familiar and the trees looked different bowed down with their heavy loads.

I saw a lot of 'snowbows', what I call a tree bent into a snow laden arch and made it my duty to knock off the snow on the ones I passed so the trees wouldn't break.

Not a living creature stirred at the lake, no ducks nor gooses and barely a bird.

I got back to the car after covering a couple of miles hoping I'd got enough photos to ensure a few good ones. It had been quite difficult to keep the camera out of the way of the constant dripping.

On the way home I saw this old jalopy. It's quite surprising how many old abandoned tractors there are in this area that are now delegated to becoming rustic garden ornaments. So with snow photos obtained it was back home for another session on the sofa watching a movie and sipping a glass of local whiskey. What a lazy weekend.