2 Feet of Snow

WELL, ALMOST TWO feet. Because of all the precipitation over the past couple of weeks we decided to take a trip up to the mountains to check out the snow. We hadn't gone more than 40 minutes before we reached the white stuff -- and within one hour it looked like this:

Since we didn't have chains we decided to stop for lunch in a Swiss-looking village called Thorenc where we ate at Les Mericiers the only restaurant open on a snowy Sunday afternoon. It was a bit fancier that we wanted, but we were pretty eager to get some food so we gave it a shot. It was incredibly charming inside (roaring fire and all) and the food very good but, well, probably a bit fancier than the kids wanted. [Note: by 'fancier than they wanted' I, of course, mean they couldn't order pizza! I'm sure those of you with young children know exactly what I mean.]

After lunch we drove up the mountain a bit further to the Col de Bleine (about 4500 feet) where we jumped around in the snow until mommy and daddy got so cold we had to go home.

The snow probably wasn't two feet deep, but there were places where we sank down past our knees. It was at those times that I was wishing I wasn't wearing tennis shoes. It took the whole ride home to regain the feeling in my feet. This has been a very cold and wet couple of weeks in this part of France. The ski resorts are loving it as you can imagine. Several of the big resorts in the Alpes-Maritimes opened this weekend -- a week or two early!

CJS