Sad day...

For any of you not familiar with Valdez, the winter is pretty fantastic. Valdez does nothing small, in fact we average 300 inches of snow a year. That is 25 feet of snow. Well anyone who has snow in the winter realizes that once it snows, things disappear. Here in Valdez that is the norm. Most people have markers for things that are important to them. We have markers on our septic tanks and others mark their drive ways, water mains, etc. In the summer time we get many tourist and we try to make them feel at home. We put out park benches, garbage cans, flower pots, picnic tables and many other outdoor ammenities. For the last couple of weeks I have noticed city service trucks picking up these things to move to winter storage. I was ok with that, but today they took down the sign. The front reads Welcome to Valdez and the back reads Come again soon--you are always welcome. I wondered, what kind of message are we sending, taking down the Welcome sign? Maybe, tourist you've been here long enough now go home. I have enclosed some winter pictures as we Valdezians prepare for winter.

Two pictures are of my backyard, you can see our poles that mark our septic. The other is one you may have seen before. It is our old Toyota van. If you look really carefully you can see the antenna in the middle of the picture.