We’re having a summer sneak preview these days: Temperatures are in the 50s and low 60s, and the warm weather had me looking through some pix I took last summer around the Tri-Cities. This one is from the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington.
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A meteor screamed across the Pacific Northwest Tuesday morning and has been the talk of the Tri-Cities (and Spokane, and Boise, and Walla Walla, and even Seattle, Portland and into Canada) since then. It happened at about 5:30 am and scared the bejeezus out of some folks who saw it:
“The light was so … close to me and so bright, I swerved off the road,” said Dante Martinez of Richland. “I was shaking because it was so close. I’ve never witnessed or seen anything so bright ever. … It was so super bright, my eyes had to adjust a little.”
Well, the debate is now on: Did the meteor ever hit the ground, or did it disintegrate in mid-air? Have a look at these videos and see what you think:
According to this story, a private aircraft pilot saw the meteor hit about an hour north of the Tri-Cities along Highway 26. But according to scientists at the University of Washington, it disintegrated in the sky above the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon.
Oh, the excitement! The town’s all abuzz. I don’t have a clue what it did; I just wish I was awake to see it.
Here are some more videos for the interested:
YouTube | YouTube | CNN | Tri-City Herald (#1) | Tri-City Herald (#2)
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I know Chicago is the official “windy city,” but I doubt Chicago has very much on West Richland, Washington. We just finished a string of three days straight with winds ranging from 15-50 mph — just non-stop, no breaks, rocks-in-your-pockets wind.
I hate wind.
Our house is on a corner, and the open side of the house faces west. That, of course, is where the wind usually comes from. So when it’s windy, our house gets pounded. Here are three photos I took in 2006 of the wind damage we suffer whenever West Richland turns into the really windy city:
January 2006
November 2006
December 2006
At the risk of completely jinxing us, I’ll admit this: We haven’t had any fences knocked out so far this winter. But there’s still plenty of time. And plenty of wind, no doubt.
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I like Seattle. I like visiting Seattle. I just don’t like getting stuck in Seattle and spending an extra day in Seattle when I should be home.
After the Big Ice and Snow Storm of 2008 shut down Tri-Cities Airport on Sunday, I finally made it home today, just 26 hours later than normal.
This photo is my water bottle sitting in the snow on top of my car at the airport parking lot. I had about 8 inches of snow and a 1/2-inch sheet of ice covering my car when I reached the parking lot.
Three other car-in-snow-and-ice photos:
Toyota Snowmobile
Inside the Igloo
Digging Out
It took me about an hour overall to get the car dug out, but that included about 10-15 minutes helping an older lady nearby who was in the same predicament as me.
So good to be home….
I’ve lived on a corner my whole life.
I grew up on a corner — on the corner of Forsythia Drive South and Flagstone Place, to be exact. I liked living on a corner. The yard was a pretty good size. We only had two houses adjacent to ours — one behind us and one to the right. And I didn’t mind the extra traffic. In fact, Flagstone was a little cul-de-sac, so it didn’t bring much traffic at all. I lived in that house my entire childhood.
Today, living in the first house Cari and I have bought, we’re also on a corner. I don’t like living on a corner. The yard is a pretty good size — that means more grass to cut in the summer. We only have two houses adjacent to ours — that means the sidewalk that extends from the SW corner of our lot all the way around to the NE corner is ALL ours. And it’s the law that homeowners have to shovel their own sidewalks when it snows. We got 3-4 inches overnight last night. I end up shoveling about 2x as much snow as the neighbors. I can’t stand shoveling snow.
I think our next house will be in the middle of a street somewhere.
Somewhere that it doesn’t snow.
