Feb. 20, 2003 [LINK]
Snow, Mexico
Here in Staunton we only got about ten inches of frozen precipitation over the weekend, much less than in D.C. and other eastern cities. However, it was almost entirely hard-packed sleet, which required hours of tedious chiseling and scooping to clear a path for our car. Cardiac alert!? Even before this storm, this was the harshest winter we've had for several years, and now it ranks as one of the harshest I've endured since moving to Virginia over two decades ago. Usually the crocuses and forsythia bushes are flowering by early February, but there are NO signs of spring at all, except for the birds singing. As a well-timed getaway from all this, Jacqueline and I will be heading "South of the Border" in a few days, on a long-awaited journey to Old Mexico. Consequently, this Web site will be inactive for about two weeks, but will be chock full of fascinating new material after we return! Ya'll come back now, ya hear?
Hail Columbia!
Let's not forget the seven brave astronauts who perished so suddenly aboard the space shuttle Columbia on February 1:
- Rick D. Husband, Commander (colonel, U.S. Air Force)
- William C. McCool, Pilot (commander, U.S. Navy)
- Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander (lieutenant colonel, U.S. Air Force)
- David M. Brown, Mission Specialist 1 (captain, U.S. Navy)
- Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2 (born in India)
- Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Mission Specialist 4 (commander, U.S. Navy)
- Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1 (colonel, Israeli Air Force)