Last Monday I woke up to darkness, Kendall. The snow was over the house, but I was lucky because I still had food. But after a few hours I noticed that the house was cooling off and I realized that the gas for the furnace had plumb froze up in the lines. I opened one of the sliding doors in the basement and started tunneling out, figuring that it was just a snowdrift. Well, it wasn't.

I must have gone a couple hundred yard when I bumped into a big ol' tree. So I tunneled upwards, climbing the tree as I went. I tunneled up about a hundred feet when I broke through to daylight and what I saw astounded me.

As far as the eye could see was a flat, white blanket of snow. The only indication of the mountains was the top of Chinese Peak, looking like a tiny bump in the snow.

Howard Mountain, Kinport Peak, Scout Mountain -- all of them were buried. The only sound was the traffic on the Interstate moving through the tunnel they'd created. I dropped the shovel and climbed down to get my camera because I knew that without a photo there wasn't anyone who didn't live here who'd believe it. But as I walked back to the house there was a "crunch" and the tunnel was caving in behind me! The snow as too dry to support the tunnel! Well, I ran and made it back okay, didn't even lose the shovel, but the collapse of the tunnel roof did take the heel of my boot of just as I got into the house.

Digging the tunnel had let in enough sunshine so that the gas line thawed and I had heat again. And you won't believe this, but that snow had so little water content that it pretty much dried up completely so that just before noon I was able to drive to work on the surface of the street.

You might not believe this, you might think I'm stretching the blanket or pulling the long bow a might. But I've still got both the shovel and the car, and I can show you the tree I climbed and that oughta be enough proof for anybody.