Madison, WI

Started walk at 6:35 a.m.

It snowed yesterday afternoon and into the night. This morning the sidewalks were unshoveled and the walking was laborious. Chance and I were the first to make tracks in the virgin snow except where the plows had been traveling throughout the night.

The temperature was probably just below freezing and the sky was overcast. Give me sun.

Chance just loves the snow. He barrels into it, sniffs it, plows it with his nose and laps at the flakes with his extraordinarily long tongue.

Around the island, the snow soaked into the water but refused to melt. It floated just below water level like ice in a grape Slurpie. Although it snowed, it wasn't like those mornings after a big blizzard when you walk out of your house and think that you're in a wonderland -- like the old slogan on Michigan's license plates, "Winter Wonderland." It wasn't like that.

There were not very many birds out this morning although we did appear to fluster a big Jaye that seemed entangled in a dogwood shrub by the stepping stones.

The coffee was Costa Rican and it was good. Muffin -- cranberry -- good.