Cold Dawn

Special Note of Thanks

Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by to help celebrate my two-year Blippiversary! You sent my gazebo sunset photo to the spotlight, where it spent most of the past two days! This seldom happens to me, so I was delighted. What a thrill! Thank you, one and all!

When I woke up on Friday morning, my picture was still on the spotlight pages. I had work in the morning, a holiday event at lunch, and a few hours of vacation in the afternoon to run some errands. I planned, when I got home, to sit and bask in the light of adoration - and start responding to all of the lovely comments that were left on my page.

But alas, when I got home, our Internet was out! And it stayed out all evening. It was a very strange feeling, knowing my Blip was attending a party for me that I couldn't even go to myself!

We are back online as of this morning. I don't know what the reason was why we were offline. It couldn't be the weather, as the huge winter storm that is anticipated for the northeastern U.S. is only starting to hit us now (Saturday morning) in Pennsylvania. We are expecting quite a few inches of snow. And all of our errands are caught up, so we can stay inside and watch and enjoy. (And after the snow: pictures, hooray!)

So . . . thank you to everyone who came by to help celebrate my special Blip day! Thank you especially to the many of you who made yesterday's picture a "favorite." That means a lot to me. Thanks to those of you who commented, thanks for the stars, thanks to the new subscribers to my journal, and thanks for the many views (more than 300 - a personal Blip record!). I will respond individually to each and every comment over the coming few days. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

About This Picture

I had meetings on campus all morning on Thursday, so I decided to take the bus in on what was probably the coldest morning of the year so far. The temperature was about 14 degrees F (about minus 10 C). I finally had the good sense to wear a great big Woolrich coat with a hood, and gloves.

The bus dropped me off behind the library and I spent the next half-hour or so before my first meeting walking around campus just looking at and photographing everything in the cold. It was so cold that the ducks were shivering on the duck pond. It was so cold that the squirrels shivered on their trees. It was so cold that even girls clutching cameras shivered too.

Arriving at that time of morning is awesome, though. Inspiring, even, if you are a lover of light. I could see the light starting in the sky as my bus approached campus, and I was drawn to the light, down through the middle of campus toward Old Main. And I saw the first light of day hit Penn State. I saw the golden light glisten on the tops of the buildings, saw it shine off each window, saw it start filtering down to the ground. Light but not heat. Enchanting moments for me. Morning is the very best time of day. Yes, even when it's this cold . . .

By the way, this is the same walkway that you saw in my November 26 monochrome shot looking down the mall toward downtown. (Alas, it was too early for any of the Corner Room's homemade French onion soup, though. Yes, I would totally have eaten some, even before 8 am!)

The song to accompany this picture: Foreigner, Cold as Ice.