Now that's more like it

The way I look at winter, as long as Nature's throwing us a cold-weather party, it might as well supply the decorations.

Let it snow.

I got my wish this morning, awakening to a landscape draped in a powdery blanket -- only a few windblown inches, but a welcome change from browns and grays.

The season's first real snowfall, greeting us as Sunday dawned, seemed to quiet everything. The only footprints outside my window are those of a rabbit, a pair of raccoons and a dozen wintering songbirds. Every now and then a car squeaks and crunches along the road, and overnight we heard the occasional county plow grind past, but otherwise our world is remarkably, gloriously silent.

This round of winter weather arrived yesterday afternoon, coinciding with my family's plans to travel north to celebrate a four-year-old's birthday. The 30-mile trip, mostly over Interstate highways, became something of an adventure and (naturally) a mild shakedown of our newly acquired SUV.

We held a steady, responsible pace, respecting the treacherous surface. The right-hand lanes were stacked with puckering motorists advancing at a crawl, while to our left drivers whizzed by without apparent caution, either ignorant of (or oblivious to) the road conditions. George Carlin was right:

"Anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac."

We saw many of those "maniacs" again later, of course -- spun into the median, wadded into guardrails and bridge supports, vehicles resting on their sides or roofs.

Sometimes, stupid hurts.

My family and I arrived at the birthday party, which was held at a suburban bowling alley, unscathed. (And yes, I executed several 4WD snow-donuts in the nearly empty parking lot, amusing our spawns.) The party was a pleasant departure from our everyday, and the drive home a few hours later was slow but uneventful.

An hour or so from now -- or whenever the rest of the family stirs from slumber -- our house will fill with the aromas of bacon and eggs, fried potatoes and fresh-brewed coffee. We don't often indulge, referring to this as a "special breakfast," but today strikes me as the perfect day to splurge.

I'll take my seat at the table, wrap my hands around a warm mug and gaze out the front window across the white, sunlit fields.

Special, indeed.