With the excitement of Groundhog Day, it is easy to forget that I schedule a one week vacation tied to Groundhog Day. This year we travelled to Arlington for another visit with my aunt and cousin. We lost about 45 minutes on the trip to the D.C. area due to serious snow along Lake Erie, the rest of the trip was quite pleasant. On the return, we drove the US15 corridor for the first time due to an incoming snow storm. I was truly surprised at how well this route works even though there are significant non-freeway segments. We clipped the very beginning of Buffalo’s serious blizzard (about 15 minutes of snow driving for us). By the time the event was over, the city was completely paralyzed under 3 feet of snow.

Originally we were planning a longer trip to the D.C. area but a partial government shut down was in effect and most venues had seen no service in nearly a month, not great for tourism.

My aunt is doing better than when we visited last Autumn, in her nineties, she now requires assisted living but at a lower level than most.