The Great Blizzard of 2011

Now won't that be an awkward title if a bigger one hits yet this year? I'll take the chance... really living on the edge, you could say.

It's a pretty cool thing when it snows enough to practically shut down a city. Not everything is closed, obviously, but a lot is. I like to pretend that everything except snow removal has shut down: 2.9 million people, 10 million if you count the greater metropolitan area, united by 24 hours of pounding snow, thundering winds, and thundering, well, thunder.  It would be a good day to have cross-country skis. And to know how to cross-country ski.

People are out in the street digging their cars out of drifts that cover their hood, and in some cases everything else. The lucky ones have shovels. Cameron will be using a bucket to dig his car out if he's going to get to work tomorrow. A "bail out" of a different sort, perhaps.

So for today everything has slowed to a walking pace, almost literally. The major streets are more or less drivable, but side streets - plowed or not - are dominated by pedestrians on their way to and from the lake shore. Anyhow, I joined their ranks, camera in hand, and came back with over a hundred pictures (well, 101). These are just a few of them.