Christmas #2 in Tenessee

Since we have three sets of grandparents and only two holiday breaks, someone gets left out of the rotation each year. This year that misfortune fell on Grandma Carol. But as luck would have it her birthday is on Dec. 13th and her thoughtful husband, Chris, knew exactly what she wanted - to see her only grandbaby. So he bought a plane ticket for Venessa to fly out with Jeremy for a weekend. Now this wasn't a purely altruistic act. By flying Venessa out rather than Carol to Colorado he would get to see him as well, which I don't think he minded at all.

Venessa and Jeremy had a great time having Christmas with her family.

Meanwhile, I had to stay home and "work". So to reward myself I decided to tackle Flattop Mountain which lies above 12,000 feet along the continental divide in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Unfortunately, that day it was covered in clouds, snowing heavily with 40-60 mph winds, and about -10 degrees with windchill. I set out anyway.

It wasn't too terribly bad until I was about to break treeline and couldn't see 10 ft or feel the tip of my nose. (The picture above was taken during a lull, all the windy pictures were just white.) So I decided to stay in the trees and made my way to a frozen lake a few more miles in. I read that the views and scenery would have been amazing, but I just saw white.