Like a Freshly Un-Lidded Oreo

When I was a young squirrel, my sister and I would carefully take the tops off our Oreos, drag our two front teeth across the icing, and proclaim the result looked like tire tracks on a snowy road.  We never grew tired of this activity (or the Oreos).  I'm guessing this fascination is something only unique to us or kids in northern climates...or stoners.  Today's snow brought roads of Oreo tracks.  It was close to noon when I headed out, hoping to beat the changeover to rain as predicted.  I figured I would stick to the roads as the trails would be too deep to be easily passable and I wanted to get in at least 5 miles.  Snowshoes were an option, too, but I knew it would be slow/rough going and planned to take a spin in them once I got my run in.  It was still snowing pretty hard as I headed through the nearly six inches of snow in the driveway and onto the semi-plowed roads around our neighborhood.  When I was out of the wind, it was great, when I was in the wind, there seemed to be a little bit of sleet mixed in and it stung my face as I ran.  For some reason, it was a fun distraction from the needly pins of sleet on my face to have my tongue out to catch the tiny bits of snow and ice.  I ran mostly in the tire treads on the road with plenty of time to see any oncoming cars, whereabout I could just jump into the shoulder which was snow-covered, but flat.  There were more cars out on the road that I thought there would be.  I had an "F-off" chambered in case anyone decided to yell to the girl running in the middle of the road with her tongue hanging out that she was crazy to be out in this weather.  Never had to use it, though.  Once I turned out of the wind, it was very pleasant and I got into a decent rhythm on the road.  I kept looking over at the pristine white of the shoulder thinking it looked like the perfect place to be testing out my snowshoes, but I had plans for that when I got home.   My out-and-back route got me just over 5 miles and it never started raining after all.  Back at Squirrel Labs, I quickly changed into my snowshoes and headed out into the back yard for a test run.  I walked a few steps....cool.  I ran a few steps....oh, very cool!  I ran a lap around the back yard and got the interesting experience of kicking up a constant plume of powder all the way up against the backs of my legs.  I tried two more laps around the backyard and proclaimed the test run a success.  I may head out tomorrow for a slightly longer jaunt with the snowshoes.  I may also dream of Oreos tonight, too...