A new, clear day

Yesterday was pretty bad weather. It was snowing hard enough that a meeting in Durango was canceled. It snowed all day, sometimes the little hard pellets of snow, sometimes big flakes ... all of it with the temperature hanging right around 32 degrees. Just for variety, Mother Nature tossed in a taste of blizzard for a while last night, with a fierce wind blowing the snow ... and everything else ... around. 

At 1 a.m., when I had a little moonlight stroll with the dog, the moon and stars were out and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Same thing at 4:30, with a temperature of 4 degrees.

The Mancos Snotel just came on with this morning's readings: 66.6 inches of snow at 10,000 feet, up 8.3 inches from yesterday's readings!

So, I'm looking forward to beautiful snow scenes as we head west across the Navajo Nation this morning. 

We spent the early part of the school day yesterday at SWOS with the staff and kids and the rest of the board members who could make it. The Baptist Church next door, which has been SO supportive of the SWOS kids, let us use their assembly hall for a giant circle to be together as a community and to speak out about the losses we were feeling. Most of the kids and teachers spoke about Kai Craig, who was a student, but several also remembered her mother, Suzan. The memories of Kai were very multi-faceted reflections of someone ripped so suddenly from their midst. There were extra counselors on hand, but, in a way, every staff member was probably a counselor yesterday ... they're a lot closer to the kids than in traditional teacher/student relationships. TV