//------------------------------// // December 12 [Playing in the Snow] // Story: Silver Glow's Journal // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// December 12 I decided not to get out of bed right away ‘cause today was gonna be my last day in Kalamazoo until I got back from Florida. And I wasn’t sure exactly what I was gonna do when I got back; I didn’t want to spend Christmas alone in my apartment, and I wasn’t really sure what the human customs were with inviting friends to spend it with you. It might be a family-only holiday, although I thought it was probably a lot like Hearth’s Warming and you could spend it with anypony you wanted to. Maybe Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn had something planned and they’d be mad if I wanted to do something else. The snow had stopped but it looked like it was still overcast outside, and a little bit windy, too, ‘cause I could see little zephyrs of snow on my balcony every now and then. That wasn’t stopping the birds, though—they’d all come out of their nests to eat. A lot of birds don’t like flying in the snow and huddle up to stay warm, but since it had been snowing for so long they were probably really hungry and they knew that I had food for them. I was a little stiff from yesterday, ‘cause sometimes not moving around very much is just as bad as moving around too much. Especially ‘cause I’d sat on my belly a lot and so my ribs were kind of sore from that, and now I was on my belly again so I thought I’d stretch just a little bit and I pushed my forehooves up and arched my back and it felt like my breastbone cracked, which hurt at first and then it felt a lot better. I’d wound up on the outside of the mattress and so I had enough room to roll over without waking anyone up. Aric was in the center and he wasn’t as soft to lie on, so I just laid on my back next to him and then I closed my eyes again and hoped that the birds weren’t looking through the window at me and thinking I was being lazy, even though I was. When Meghan woke up she must not have wanted to get out of the covers right away, ‘cause she snuggled up closer to Aric and then reached across him so that she could rub my belly and I moved a little bit closer to Aric and that was enough to sort of wake him up and so he put his arm around me and pulled me in a little bit closer to him and I just rested there a little bit while he woke up, then I climbed on top of him and kissed him and Meghan both good morning. I should have asked Meghan if she wanted the first turn, but I didn’t think about it, and I don’t think she was mad that I hadn’t, and I did share him with her. We got up and Aric went into the kitchen and ate a piece of leftover pizza, while me and Meghan went into the bathroom and started the shower. And when he came in to join us, he had a little bit of pizza sauce stuck on his lip that Meghan wiped off for him. She thought it was funny that he couldn’t wait until we were done with the shower to eat, and he said that with the two of us we wore him out twice as fast and he needed to get his energy back. I told him that I hoped he had, ‘cause that would make the shower a lot more fun, and it didn’t right away but after he’d been in the hot water for a while and helped me and Meghan with the soap he was ready again and so we took advantage of it and this time I let Meghan go first just to be fair. Meghan said that we could have the rest of the leftover pizza for breakfast but I thought it would be better to save it for lunch, so we made oatmeal and toast and I had some hay and Meghan ate one piece that was on my plate when she thought I wasn’t looking. And she said that she’d meant to make pie last night before we’d started watching the last Lord of the Rings movie but she’d forgotten. We decided that we were going to go to Fort Custer again, and so Aric got dressed and went downstairs to start brushing all the snow off Winston. Meghan went to put on her clothes, too, and then she helped me get the balcony door open and we had to really fight it ‘cause of all the snowdrifts, and so I had a tight squeeze through and then she gave me the bag of birdseed so that I could fill up their feeder before we left. Aric had brushed off Winston and warmed it up but it wasn’t all that warm yet. He said that it would heat up quicker when it was moving, so we all got in and he had to rock it back and forth a couple of times before it climbed over the mound of snow that was behind it. And then it was strange to see an empty rectangle where it had been parked—snow had drifted under it a bit, but the center part of the parking spot was bare asphalt. They must have worked all night, ‘cause most of the snow was brushed off the parking lot, and when we got to Stadium Drive, it was pretty clear. The tires on the cars had worn through the snow to the pavement, but there were still ridges in the center of the lanes and in the middle of the road. Aric thought that the snowplow trucks would be by before too long to scrape it off, and he was kind of surprised that they hadn't been yet. But he said that there were lots of roads for them to plow, and they had a schedule to make sure that they got everything. We went to his house first, because he had some snow clothes there, and when we turned onto Dartmouth Street, it had hardly been plowed at all, and so we had to follow the tracks of the cars that had gone before him, 'cause you couldn't really see where the road was. And since he was worried about getting into his driveway and then back out again, he left Winston parked kind of on the street, and said that we probably shouldn't stay at the house for too long, but that there wasn't a whole lot of traffic that went by his house, so it would be okay to block the road a little bit. He let Meghan borrow his overalls, which were called Carhart and were very warm. They were also too big for her, but that was okay because she had her other clothes on under them and there were straps on the shoulder that she could shorten to pull up the legs. He also used his coffee maker to make hot chocolate, and filled up his thermos with it because he thought that we might want that, and Meghan looked around and found some granola bars that we could take with us and eat when we got hungry. We'd forgotten to bring the pizza with us. After we had our supplies for the day, we got back in Winston and Aric drove a little bit slower than he usually did, and everybody else was driving slowly, too. Some people had been lazy and not brushed their cars all the way off, and so they made moving snowstorms and sometimes big chunks of snow would break off their cars and slide down the road. And I wasn’t even sure how some of them could see—their back windows were completely blocked with snow, so they wouldn’t know if anyone was behind them. Aric was hoping that we’d get to see a train go by kicking up snow, and so when we got to where the road crossed over the tracks by Galesburg, he looked up and down to see if there were any train tracks through it, and he was kind of disappointed that there were—the train had bashed down the little mounds of snow that the snowplow trucks had pushed aside. And he looked at the signal lights and said that he thought another train might be along soon but we didn’t feel like sitting there and waiting for it. I was glad to know that they could still get through. I hadn’t seen any train snowplows driving up and down the tracks. Aric said that they existed but that he didn’t think that there was enough snow yet that they’d need them, and he said that all the locomotives had a snowplow on them anyway. And then he told me that there were also big train snowblowers for up in the mountains, and they would chew their way through the snow and then spit it out off to the side, which sounded pretty neat. I was kind of hoping that I’d get to see one on my next train trip. I was pretty sure that we were going to have to cross mountains to get to Florida, ‘cause we’d gone through them on the way to South Carolina, and Florida was past that. We never saw the train, so I guess that it was going slower than Aric thought, or else the lights didn’t mean what he thought they did. I’d noticed that sometimes the signals didn’t have any lights at all, which did mean that there wasn’t a train close, but other times the lights were on even when there wasn’t a train coming. Aric said that he thought that the ones near Comstock didn’t come on unless there was a train nearby, but he wasn’t sure how close it had to be before the lights lit. Aric drove us around to the back and it was nice because there weren’t any other people there yet, so we had the park all to ourselves. And Aric said that he wanted to walk on one of the trails and Meghan told him that was probably a stupid idea, but he thought that the ones through the woods wouldn’t have as much snow on them ‘cause the trees would block it. She said that he was probably wrong but as long as he went first she’d follow. So we decided that we’d walk along the river trail some and see what it was like. There was an old road that was the beginning of the trail, and it had some strange tracks down the middle which Aric said were snowmobile tracks, which was a small machine that had a tread on the back like a Snow Cat and had skis on the front. And he said that if we stayed here long enough we’d probably see some more of them, and I hoped that we did. They’d kind of pressed down the snow so it wasn’t as deep where they'd gone, and we followed their tracks until the trail curved towards the river. Aric had been wrong about there not being much snow under the trees, and so he kind of had to break a trail in it for us, especially where it had drifted. I could have flown over, but it was more fun to follow them along and it was good exercise, too. And since we weren't actually going on a journey somewhere, we could spend a lot of energy, 'cause when we got tired we could just go back to Winston and drive home. Then we got to where there were thicker trees and clusters of evergreens and the snow wasn't so deep there, and it looked like there hadn't been any people by, at least not since the most recent snow. There was a sign saying that snowmobiles weren't allowed back here, which meant that they hadn't made a trail for us to travel. You could tell by where the trees were where the trail went, though, and there were also little signs to follow. Sometimes you kind of had to guess, though, 'cause the signs weren't so close that you could see another one from the previous one, which was sort of dumb. Aric said that they used to paint dots on trees so that you'd know where the trail was and he thought that some places still did that, but others didn't want the dots anymore, because they were really unnatural, and he said that he had taken a canoe trip up in the north part of the Upper Peninsula where they had used wire brushes to scrape the dots off of trees, 'cause that's what the forest rangers wanted. Sometimes the trail was close enough to the river to see it, although most places you probably wouldn't have been able to if all the trees had been leafed out. And we found a little clearing where there were a couple of pine trees that were kind of drifted in, and Aric said that his Wilderness Survival manual had said that you could camp inside of them and be warm, so we thought we'd try it—at least, get inside them. So he made a trail to the trees and we followed, and he got a lot of snow on him as he tried to find a way in, since the branches went almost all the way to the ground and they were drooping from all the weight of the snow on them. But he finally figured out how to get in without getting too much more fresh snow on himself, and so the three of us crowded in there. I guess if you were a human and couldn't fly anywhere better, it would do. Once he closed up the entrance a little bit it was actually pretty well insulated—I could tell by how it blocked out the sound from outside—but it wasn't any warmer. It would stop the wind, though, and maybe that was all that you needed. And we did get really huddled together, too, 'cause there wasn't a whole lot of room under the tree for the three of us. The tree must have been mad at us for hiding there, 'cause when he went back out it dumped a bunch of snow on him, and some of it got on me and Meghan, too. We went back around to the main path and followed it all the way back to the road, and I was starting to hear a buzzing motor noise and we didn't get too far down the road before a trio of snowmobiles went past the other way. They slowed down when they saw us and then sped up once they'd passed us by, so I got to get a good look at them. They were kind of sleek, and they were open so you could enjoy the outside, and they looked like they'd be a lot of fun to ride. They were big enough that two people could fit on, although each one only had one person riding on it. When we got back to Winston, Aric got out his thermos and poured us each a cup of hot chocolate to warm up with, and we also had some water because it was really easy to get dry in the wintertime and not even know it, and eating snow wasn't a very good way to get water. Although I had eaten some, 'cause I liked the taste of fresh-fallen snow. Meghan said that I had so much snow on me it was making her feel cold, but I didn't feel too cold at all. Most of the snow wasn't melting, so it was helping to keep me warm. I wanted to play around outside some more, so once we'd finished our hot chocolate we drove over to the horse trails, and I was hoping that we might see some horses there but we didn't. There had been some before we got there, though, 'cause there were hoofprints in the snow and some of the path had green stains on it and so we decided that we didn't want to walk there, and Aric said that we'd try the path that went around Eagle Lake next. And I knew where that was, so I wanted to fly over there and stretch out my wings some, and so Aric said that they'd meet me in the parking lot. If I'd really worked hard I might have been able to beat Winston, 'cause Aric wasn't driving that fast and it was a straighter path for me than it was for him, but I didn't have any desire to race, so I took my time and just enjoyed the snowyness. There were some eagles standing on the ice, and so I thought I'd see if I could come down and join them before I went over to Aric. I knew that the ice would probably be thin, and they were staying close to the edge of it where they might see some fish, so I didn’t expect that the ice was gonna be able to hold my weight. So when I landed I kept working my wings and slowly put weight on my hooves until I felt the ice shifting under me and then I didn't land any further. And I guess I annoyed the eagles, 'cause some of them started walking away from me and one took off for the ice on the other side. And I thought about chasing after him but I didn't want to get in a fight with one and there were probably enough fish in the lake for everybird. Eagles didn't like to share, though, and so the bossiest ones would eat until they couldn't eat anymore and then the other ones would get their chance. I cracked through a little bit when I took off again, 'cause I shoved off with my legs before I could remember not to, but since I was already kinda flying I only got my hooves and a little bit of my fetlocks wet, and then I was in the air again, and I went over to the parking lot where Aric and Meghan were watching me. We started to go around the other trail and it was pretty snowed-in, too, 'cause a lot of it was more open. It was still neat to see the spots where the wind had scoured all the snow out of it, though. I knew some stuff about how wind behaved close to the ground, but not a whole lot 'cause that wasn't really too important to us. The only time we had to work close to the ground was when there was fog, and if it was really windy there wasn't much chance of fog. All the other weather that we had to work with took place higher up. Even tornadoes and waterspouts, you didn't worry too much about what the mouth of them was doing, 'cause if you could disrupt them up in the cloud, you'd make the whole thing collapse. There were some pegasuses who specialized in it, though, and figured out stuff like how much wingpower you needed to lift water out of a reservoir and up to a weather factory, and some of them could do things with low-level winds. Plus there were some pegasuses who liked to race right down by the ground and they knew a lot more about surface winds, too. We found a little cut where the snow had filled it up all the way to the top and it was too deep for even Aric to get through, so he started to climb up and around. And I was gonna fly over it but then I thought it would be fun to burrow into it, so I started digging and pretty soon I'd made a big enough hole for my whole body to fit in and that was fun. I maybe could have burrowed all the way through but I didn't want to get too deep, 'cause my hole could collapse and then I'd suffocate if I didn't get dug out in time. Meghan came back down and dug the hole a little bit bigger so she could fit into it, but that was a little bit too much and then the snow started breaking off so she got out of there before it could all collapse. So she went around, following Aric, and I flew over it, and then on the other side there was another spot where there was nothing—the wind must have made an eddy right there and dropped the snow onto the pile that we'd been playing with. We were all a little bit chilly when we got back to Winston—I'd finally gotten enough snow on me that it was melting against my skin—so we drank the rest of the hot chocolate and Aric started Winston to let it warm up, and at first it was blowing little ice crystals out of the vents, 'cause some of the powdery snow that was blowing around was getting sucked in, and the heater wasn't warm enough to melt it yet. The exhaust was, though, and I went and stood by that and it melted off a patch of snow and then started my coat steaming and I would have stayed there for longer except it smelled really bad and was making me a little bit dizzy, even though I was trying not to breathe it. Meghan had to pee, but she said that she didn't want to go into the bathrooms 'cause she'd stick to the seat and she'd just hold it until we got somewhere with proper toilets and heated bathrooms. And Aric said that it couldn't be that bad, so she told him to go into the bathroom and sit down on the seat and see how he felt, and so he did, and he came out a minute later and hugged her and said that he'd stop at the gas station in Augusta for her. So we all got in Winston and it wasn't very warm yet but they were still wearing their clothes to keep them warm and so they didn't mind too much, and I knew that I was gonna have to get used to it because if I went back on cloud patrol and had to stop 'cause I was cold, I'd never hear the end of it. Everypony would make fun of me. By the time we got to Augusta, there was warm air coming out of the vents, and all the snow that we hadn't brushed off ourselves was melting. And Aric kept his word and turned into the Shell, so that Meghan could pee and so he could get some more coffee for his thermos. We were all hungry, 'cause we hadn't had lunch at all, except for a couple of granola bars that Meghan had brought, and so even though it was a little bit early Aric said that we deserved to stop somewhere that was good but would also let us in wearing our outside clothes and decided that we'd go to Blake's. The best thing that they made was breakfast and it felt strange to be eating breakfast for dinner, but I guess since we hadn't really had lunch it was okay. And for once I didn't mind that the hash browns were greasy, 'cause they really filled me up and I ate all of them. Meghan said that since we were all still wearing our winter clothes except for me (and I was wearing my winter coat) that we should go to the Nature Center next and maybe we'd see some stars. Aric said that since it had been cloudy all day we probably wouldn't, and I thought that he was right, but maybe the sky would clear, so we drove over there and he had to park on the road because the gate was closed. So Aric turned on the blinking lights and opened the hood so that if anyone came by they would think that the truck had broken and not give it a ticket for being parked in the wrong place, and we went around the gate and the clouds were starting to break up. We didn't want to just stand around and wait, so we walked along the pasture trail and we had to go slow, 'cause as the clouds broke up, there wasn't as much light from Kalamazoo reflected back down, and it actually got a little bit darker. But that didn't matter, 'cause our eyes got used to the dark and then the stars were revealed, and we stood at the top of the hill that I liked to fly off of and looked up at them, and it wasn't as good as seeing them up north where there weren't any lights shining into the sky, but it was still really beautiful to see them all, glittering in the darkness. Even the lights of airplanes flying overhead were crystal-clear. We'd spent a bit longer than we'd meant to and when we got back to Winston, Aric was a little bit worried about it starting and he thought he'd only have one shot at it before the battery was too weak, and right before it started the engine was turning so slowly I didn't think it was going to. And he didn't want to start moving right away because he was afraid that he might stall it and then we'd be stuck, so we had to wait a little bit longer. When we got back to my apartment, it felt too hot when we went inside, and Meghan got out of her snowclothes right away because she thought she'd warm up faster without them on. And she took one of the blankets over to a hot air vent in the floor and made herself a little tent over it, and then Aric joined her, while I got together all my flight gear, which was pretty much all I thought I'd need for my vacation. And once I had that in my saddlebags, I went over and crawled under their little makeshift tent, too, and it was really warm in there, and Aric said that maybe we should move our bed over by the heating vent and we could put the tail of the blanket over it. Meghan thought that would be too warm after a while, plus it would make the rest of the room cold, so after we'd all warmed up we got out from our little blanket tent and then sat on the mattress and we each had a beer and Meghan said that we could watch another short Christmas movie but we didn't; we just snuggled together, and then they both started getting undressed a little bit at a time and then we warmed up that way.