Tonight I commented on Facebook about our magical snow day in Wilmington NC. A friend from the DC area assured me snow was not magical. She reminded me that, after getting 24" over the weekend and 8" just a few days later, "magical" would not be her description for the mess in northern VA. Their first storm of 2010 came just after the New Year and warranted lots of excitement and pictures. She's still posting pictures but the excitement is long gone and they're praying for spring. A relative from WV weighed in that she too was sick of snow.
Here in Wilmington NC, just 5 hours south, nestled between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, we're enough degrees warmer to typically experience rain rather than snow. Yes, El Nino rain has us considering ark construction but we haven't shoveled snow this year nor for the 5 years we've called Hampstead NC home. Hampstead is the north Wilmington area and we are just 11 miles from Topsail beach. Last year we saw a dusting of perhaps an inch one frosty morning with no sign remaining by noon.
This Saturday morning was so different. 6" piled on our deck rail, our cypress trees heavy with snow, the wax myrtles bent to the ground, a clean unspoiled blanket covering Hampstead homes and lawns - yet the streets wonderfully clear. It was perfect, dare I say "magical," to have all that snow without the necessity for plows or salt trucks. Children and parents, many for the first time, built unique versions of "frosty" - the bikini clad snow-woman, the gaudily dressed Mardi Gras snowman, the matronly "Red Hat" snow-woman and, inexplicably, the terrorist snowman with a black bandana over his face and a machine gun tucked under his arm - an expression of current cultural concern going way beyond a carrot nose and two eyes made out of coal. I saw a snow fort and real snowball battle and children with sleds on gentle slopes next to highway overpasses which is about all that passes for a hill in the Wilmington area.
Topsail beach in the early morning with a combination of snow and sand was breathtaking. And our Wilmington snow hung around, for the most part, all day. One magical day in Wilmington NC where it does snow sometimes - just not very often!
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