Gene,
I love watching your works in progress! You're the neatest, cleanest ship modeler!!
Although I have the same kit in my stash I doubt I'll ever attempt to build her. The modifications/scratch building to make her more accurate daunts me. That said, who knows .. maybe yours and Steve's builds will inspire me to give it the old college try one day.
Now, as to snow....
I was born and raised in New York - the city was my home but two boarding schools held me in captivity from the time I was 9 until I graduated from prep school at 17. The city (Manhattan) usually doesn't get as cold as it gets upstate. At school I remember walking the 1/4 mile to school from the dorm in -22° F in the winter. Very chilly! Plenty of snow.
When I was 29 I moved to southern California and spent 38 years there. No snow except in the mountains. I did hike in the snow in early spring sometimes - not deep snow though.
After 38 years in southern California, and becoming a bit tired of the seemingly rising heat, I retired from teaching in a high school in LA and moved up to Oregon. Salem, in the Willamette Valley gets pretty mild winters. It rarely snows at my place. So, for fun, I seek out the white stuff when there's enough of it in Oregon's Sno-Parks around the Santiam Pass. My brother took me to one of these parks the first winter I was up here - 2010/2011. He was on cross country skiis but stopped every 1/8 of a mile or so to let me catch up on my snow shoes. From that first experience snow shoeing I created a panoramic image that I now use as my electronic Christmas card.
So for all of you in FineScale:
