We woke this morning to beautiful snow cover again ! .. I never get tired of snow.. It was a little slushy down here.. but we’d heard that it was snowing pretty hard up at Bolton. Our friend, S, came buy and the three of us and Chi headed up to Bolton for a snowshoe. The weather up there was amazing. It was snowing pretty hard and ii was super pea-soup foggy. The effect was really magical. The Lodge and lifts are all closed for the season, so it had sort of a post apocalyptic end-of-the earth kind of feel. We headed up the trails into the fog.. at times you could only see about 10 yards.. it was very cool.

The snow was coming down with the wind and was sticking to the trees in the most amazing way. It was like everything had thick ‘snow shadows’

As we walked, our friend told us an amazing story that had happened to her and her family when they were out in Tahoe last week. They had stopped into a clothing booth to check out some of the gear when the person personing the booth started staring at them. The booth person finally asked if they were local to Tahoe.. They said no.. and asked why.. The woman pointed at the ‘Sam Forever’ sticker on our friends board.. and asked… ‘how did you know her ?’ Our friends were confused and explained about our Sam. The women freaked. ! She then told them that there was a 16 year old girl named Sam from Tahoe who was killed while driving 2 summers ago.. She’d been a really wonderful kid, had many.many friends and was an excellent snowboarder. When she died, her friends had made stickers exactly like ours:.. same ‘Sam Forever’, same size.. even the same font ! the only difference was that theirs had been pink..! I think it’s an amazing story.. I’m still not sure what to make of it.

We finished our walk enjoying the snow and the silence.. then came on back down the hill. One the way down we stopped at David Kemp’s to take Gabe his board and riding gear so he could play up on the mountain. There as about 8 inches of snow in David’s driveway.. which is about 7 and a half inches too much for the Prius.. we ended up having to dig the car out and push it as Diane gunned the accelerator.. She finally got the car moving and we ran along behind..

It just doesn’t matter if you own two 4 wheel drive cars if both of them are sitting at home in your driveway..

We stopped at home for a bit to veg for a bit. .. then headed out into the wilds of Essex and Williston for a few errands. First stop was at the ‘beCause’ show in Grace Methodist Church in Essex. The show had about 20 vendors selling beautiful hand made stuff. Each of the vendors was donating half of his/her take for the day to a charitable cause. There were people donating to a therapy dog training program, another to greyhound rescue, another to American Cancer Society. Our friends Ed and Jeanne were there working their son Michael’s booth selling ‘Eddie’s Energy Bars’ .

Michael had decided to give half of his days earnings to the Sam Cohn Fund . .. It was great seeing Ed and Jeanne. We sat there eating energy bars which were really good . !. I particularly liked the peanut butter and chocolate. We really appreciate the Michael and his family’s efforts on behalf of Sam’s fund.. They are really great folks..

After we left the because show, I had to make a quick stop into IBM to drop off my passport. I’ve run out of pages and need to get a visa for a trip to Russia I’m going on in June I had to pick the lock on Jleigh’s desk to leave it safely (it’s in the upper left drawer, Jleigh.. thanks !) I learned to pick locks in college.. it’s still one of the things I most use from my college education

We dropped by Staples on the way home to pick up Max’s art history study guide then stopped at Shaws to pick up food for dinner. While in the grocery store, two folks came up to me and had the ‘I haven’t talked to you since your son’s death conversation. It takes such guts for people to approach us for the first time.. I know how hard and awkward it can be, and we really appreciate it when someone makes the effort.. it’s never to late to tell us how you feel.. or that you’re thinking about Sam.. we love to hear it…. We always will.

Diane made a really yummy Pad Thai…for dinner.. I’m resisting the urge to go downstairs and role in it. I just love the smell of that ‘fish sauce’ .. It smells like low tide.. but I can’t get enough of it. I must have been a bottom feeder in some past life. Now we’re just sitting around having a quiet evening at home.

Around 10, we went up to  see Gabe at the Townsend’s where he’s spending the night. I wanted to see him before I head to LA tomorrow for a conference. I’ll be back on Thursday. Like always, there aere a ton of kids up at the Twonsends.. such a nice place !

While I was up there, Hannah gave me my own ‘Friends of Sam’ pin. FoS is a group the kids have created to do good stuff in the community in Sam’s honr. They designed the pins as part of their fundraising. I love the design it has a guitar, a guitar pick, a snowboard and a lacross stick.. Pure Sam

Well.. as the Greatful Dead say.. I like to get soem sleep before I travel’.  I need to sleep before I take off tomorrow. I’m looking forward to this event. There will be several thousand folks from all over north America and Asia.. I’ll see many friends.. so I’ll be carrying many SamStones.. I’ll give you all a report from the coast.. Talk to you soon… Sam travel with me again

-me