River Runners Christmas Lights Run

What a wonderful way to spend an evening ... with 42 St. Cloud River Runners, sharing a run, food and fun at Donnie and Cindy's home.

The day began with what else ... more snow.

Defnitely NOT what we needed. I got on the Stairmaster for an hour and a half. And made some banana bread to give to the neighbors...

 and another batch of  Candy Cane Blossoms. They're so colorful.

Guess which one I sampled??

Then I put together a little host/hostess thank you bucket for Donnie and Cindy as I stayed with them last night.

When the winter weather advisory was extended until 3 PM, my travel plans were in jeopardy. But the snow quit about 2 PM and I decided I'd give it a shot. The roads were definitely worst in Rochester and got steadily better the further north I drove. I saw 6 vehicles in the ditch between here and Pine Island. But my drive was uneventful, other than a traffic standstill on 494 as there were 8 dump trucks and huge snow elevator thingy removing snow from the sides of the road.

We first headed out for a 4 mile run. It was a beautiful evening. 22 degrees and no wind. There weren't too many lights on display, but it was a nice run just the same. There is about half as much snow in St. Cloud as there is here and the roads are in MUCH better condition. Dinner was two kinds of soup (Rick's vegetable bean soup and Carol's wild rice soup) and lots of bread and sweets. Delicious meal. After much chatter, I finally retired to their guest room. Donnie and Cindy have run lots and lots of marathons ...

and have won lots of awards.

The drive home was uneventful. The sunrise was pretty for a few minutes/miles.

And I got home in time for a 10:00 bowl of oatmeal followed by a trip to HyVee. It was NUTS in there. A very successful road trip!!