Send us your winter escape photos

This is the best winter break photo Tom Obert could muster. He's outside the original Subway Sandwich store in Bloomington, Indiana. (Jared wasn't in so they left without buying anything.)

Tom Obert writes:
We know many people travel to interesting places over the holidays, of course - please send your shots of snow-covered ski slopes, Virgin Island beaches, the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Pagoda in Kyoto, and hey, even an occasional in-law. Allow me to be the first to submit Jared's original Subway shop in Bloomington, Indiana, hard by the IU campus (Ruthie and sister Rita are Hoosier alums).

We generally spend Christmas with one mother (-in-law) and New Year's with the other, thereby insuring equal opportunity guilt trips from each. We spent the week after Christmas with Ruthie's Mom in Terre Haute and with Rita in Nashville, Indiana (16 miles from Bloomington). This was the first trip with the new laptop computer so we were going to WIFI. (wireless internet connection using radio waves or something) When we arrived in Terre Haute, we were able to sit in the car across the street from Grandma's and next to Indiana State frat houses where we were able to pick up internet signals! This was great - we felt we could go to work for Bush's NSA! So we read e-mails and tried to respond to a few. We had little luck WIFIing thereafter but received strange looks when we walked into establishments allegedly with WIFI, tried unsuccessfully to hook-up, and got up and left without purchasing or ordering anything.

We had an interesting trip home today (12 hours to go 700 miles) - it rained all through Wisconsin at about 32 degrees, so we figured it was only a matter of time before it got dicey. Just west of Eau Claire, we saw 3 cars in the ditch, and then a couple more when we got close to St. Paul. Fortunately, by the time we got north of the Cities, it was dry . . . until we got close to Alex and noticed that there seemed to be a fresh coating of significant snow fall.
We learned about 6 more inches fell here Thursday (I would guess we have had close to 30 for the season already) so we couldn't get in the driveway when we got home - had to get out and shovel our way in. There has been no sunshine at all here for the last 11 days and Ole Sol is not expected to show his face around here til Friday - more snow in the interim.

I received a card from an old D.C., colleague who was in Europe this summer. He sent a copy of the September 15 International Herald Tribune that reprinted a whole page of the New York Times story on Bob Dylan's story of Minnesota, including a large picture of Big Ole and another of the Runestone Museum.

(Note from the trailboss: Now here's a vacation photo: My wife wrestling an alligator on a bayou south of New Orleans. Eat your heart out, Greg Johnson!)