Holiday Presence :: Day Twenty-Six

Winter Road Trips...

An innocent trip to go up North for Tour De Snow...and "Maybe this will get me in the holiday spirit..." Resulting in one of my favorite pictures of Rich ever:

I know I don't post a ton of pictures of Rich close-up on my blog...and it's not that I don't want to, it's just that there's still a part of me that feels kind of shy about taking pictures of him (that and he's about like me when you take pictures of me...I end up making weird smiley faces, and I'm thinking it's often better to try to capture us on the sly) I know...it's a bit nuts.

But this picture?

This picture managed to capture one of the favorite faces Rich often makes at me when I'm being silly...he always has the great talent to make me laugh, also making me feel so lucky to have him in my life...and so excited that we get to go out and play together and sincerely enjoy spending time with each other (even though he wears an electric orange coat...but, at least I can find him in a snowstorm, eh? giggle...)

This picture is true Rich A' La Carte...

It was also about the time that I realized that we would not be holding hands all romantically and snapping holiday photos as we strolled through the downtown shops of Flagstaff, because Flagstaff was just starting to get hammered by their latest snow storm, so we decided to count our blessings with the few things we got to do...and head down the hill instead.

So...I spent a lot of time taking pictures out of the windows of the Titan, while Rich navigated the increasingly crazy snowy roads in near white-out conditions. He is a phenomenal driver, so I didn't need to press my invisible passenger side brakes or steer in my mind...or grab my arm rests with white knuckles...seriously, I always feel very safe with Rich behind the wheel of the car.

Unfortunately, the kids in the SUV up there weren't so lucky...they spun out, lost a tire when it flew up in the air about 50 feet...and then bounced down the road, and then their bumper and other various and sundry things. I missed it because I was busy taking pictures...But, they looked OK, both were upright and using cell phones when we slowly passed them (There was someone already there pulling over to help and we figured we'd just be in the way, and we couldn't really see exactly what happened...)

All in all, it was a beautiful snowy trip...and we both were excited to run home and see our snowfall...of which there was NONE, thankyouverymuch. It seems as if our storms are accompanied by insane amounts of wind...which blows the clouds straight to somewhere else.

It's not entirely fair really...