8:30 a.m.
The temperature outside is 18.7F. By my measurements, we’ve got exactly one foot of fresh snow on the back porch since I shoveled it off last night at around 5:15 p.m. On the front porch, we have well over a foot. And it’s still coming down – we’re close to a band that could be dumping as much as four inches every half hour! Insanity! Becky is making cran-apple pancakes for breakfast, and then later we’re going to venture out to see more of the snow. For now, we have some photos shot from ***inside the building|http://gallery.prwdot.org/blizzard_200501***:

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Well over a foot of snow on the front porch!|ppp

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Outside on the back porch and a view of the Home Style Laundry parking lot.|ppp

10:00 a.m.
Outside temperature is 18.5F. Becky and I just got back inside from a little jaunt around the block. We cleared pretty much all of the snow off of our front porch. It wasn’t too difficult because the snow is very light and fluffy. Then Becky tried out her cross-country skis. The conditions weren’t quite right, because the snow was just too cold and not slick enough for her to glide. But we went around the block just the same. We entered the building via the Home Style Laundry parking lot, and had to climb over/through a massive drift of snow left by the laundry’s snowplow. I was sinking in nearly to my waist! The ***gallery|http://gallery.prwdot.org/blizzard_200501*** is updated with more pics.

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Becky shovels off the front porch.|ppp

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Becky parks on the side of Cabot Street, in front of the laundry’s parking lot.|ppp

11 a.m.
We’re watching ***Return of the King|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0167260/***, the extended edition, including the drinking contest between Gimli and Legolas. 🙂 The snow’s piled up on top of our basement windows, so we can’t see what exactly is going on outside, but it sounded like someone has come to plow our parking lot. We talked to ***Corey|http://corey.prwdot.org/*** online. He came back from ***Sunday River|http://www.sundayriver.com/*** last night and is venturing out this morning to the local Arlington ***Dunkin Donuts|http://www.dunkindonuts.com/***. (Update: He just got back. They were closed. 🙁 ) We talked to Becky’s dad on the phone. He and Dianne are in Baltimore, coming back from a trip to Florida. Sounds like they’ll be staying there over night since the Boston area airports are closed.

Snippet from movie watching. Gandalf: “We have just passed into the realm of Gondor!” Becky, to the movie: “How can you tell? Did the roads get worse?” “Is it like when you are driving back from New Hampshire into Massachusetts?”

4:00 p.m.
We finished watching Return of the King, and shortly thereafter we heard the sound of a plow outside! One of our landlord’s sons was out plowing the lot with a Bobcat. We went outside and helped shovel out snow from around the cars, as much as possible so that we can get our cars out if necessary. The snow has pretty much stopped, but from what we hear, most of Beverly’s side roads are not passable… including ours. So we’ll be holed up here for the foreseeable future!

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Here’s what our living room windows look like from outside|ppp

6:46 pm
Becky’s Turn to Update!
We just got back from a nice drive around town. The roads weren’t too awful… The main streets had been plowed, but there was still a layer of snow on the ground. Hopefully the sand/salt trucks will be out soon.

The good news is… I only had to hop out of the car and push once!

Area Bloggers
Other area folk update on the snow: ***Arthur|http://kizoku.blogspot.com/2005/01/for-those-keeping-score.htmlhttp://kizoku.blogspot.com/2005/01/for-those-keeping-score.html***, ***James|http://drjames.blogspot.com/2005/01/whitewashed.html*** (both in Beverly), ***Chris|http://amusings.journalspace.com/*** (in Groveland), ***Jeremy and Angela|http://thebiggspicture.org/2005/01/blizzard-of-05.html*** (in Hyannis), ***Nikkiana|http://everytomorrow.org/archives/2005/01/23/randomess/*** (near Concord, NH).