PENNIES IN THE SNOW

      25 degrees with a wind chill of 7 is normal in upstate NY where I grew up.  However, in Texas, when you add snow and ice to the mix, as my mom used to say, "that makes the cheese more binding."  For the good news, there weren't very many cars on the road so I could run on the sidewalk or in the street, whichever had the best footing.  The bad news, it was too cold to rain so all that fine rainy mist coming down was ice, and with a 15-20 MPH wind it kinda felt like I was getting sandblasted.  Bright side, I should think of that as exfoliation?   I do have to admit that I really like running in inclement weather, it's kind of cool being out there in the rain, snow, wind, whatever and you're the only one out there.  And most times people will smile and wave, except for this morning when most cars had snow/ice on part of the windshield and with the conditions they were just trying to keep the car on the road and between the lines that you couldn't see under the snow.  

     I used to have expectations for the run based on the time of day, the route, and the weather, but I have learned (yeah, I know, at this advanced age even...) that YOU    JUST    NEVER    KNOW.   With snow and ice everywhere, I wondered if I'd find anything, so I 'hedged my bets' just a little by salting my pocket with a penny that found me in the dark Monday night.  I've mentioned how pennies find me everywhere now. So, Monday night I was finishing up fielding an engineering fiber placement job in Carrollton.  It was very dark.  There were street lights, there were car headlights of course, but for the most part, it was dark. So what shows up in the street, in a little depression in the road even, in the dirt?  Yup, my shiny penny.  And of course, I always have this momentary sense of awe---how does he find me like that???   Anyway, I was going to use that penny for today's picture if I didn't find anything, and as always, stuff shows up. In this case it was a quarter, a dime and 4 pennies, one of which was a wheat penny from 1942.  Once again, it just makes me laugh.  And I found my hundred and lebenty ninth bungie cord, hard to pass those up.  I mean how are you going to keep your bungie together if you don't have a supply of these guys!