The Holiday Season Finally Rolls to a Close

[chomiji]

We never have Christmas with the Mr.'s family on the actual day, because our brother-in-law (married to the Mr.'s sister) is a minister (formerly Lutheran, now Episcopalian) and he is always too busy. So we've taken to having it on M.L. King Day weekend.

The trip to western Maryland (which takes about 3 hours) started out fairly pleasant for January, wih flashes of sun. By about 2 and a half hours out, we had freezing fog, and the visibility was only a few hundred feet. It was like the mountain road was about to end in a foggy chasm.

(I wanted to take a picture of the sign for the Eastern U.S. Continental Divide, but I missed it again!)

Books were given and received, which is always good. I got Carly Simon's new autobiography, Boys in the Trees, and Women of Wonder: Celebrating Women Creators of Fantastic Art. I also got Adele's and Florence + the Machine's new albums on CD. And we ate lamb and ham, baked salmon, brussels sprouts and green beans, home-made bread rolls, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and salad, followed by chocolate cake, homemade chocolate covered matzoh (my sis-in-law likes making it, and it's quite good), and my other sister-in-law's fruit salad, available with or without alcohol (the spiked one contains several different fruit liqueurs).

By the time we left, it was sleeting there in Garrett County, but we outdrove the storm about 50 miles out, and the rest of the drive home was uneventful.

In related news, I have leveled up in Waze and am now a Waze Warrior, so my icon on the map has a little shield. I go up very slowly in Waze because I only use it on expeditions of some length, when someone else is driving.

Also, I got a couple of late holiday cards in the last few days, including a very cute handmade one from Spain.   :-) (You know who you are!)

Comments

[tropicsbear]

Wait, there are Waze levels??? My dad discovered the app mid-2015 and has been using it all the time, even for relatively short trips to places we always go to (like Grandma's house).

[chomiji]

Yeah, you get points in Waze for every time you report a traffic hazard (including things like a vehicle stopped along the shoulder or a traffic jam or or a pothole in the road) or police presence or something like that. Sometimes they have silly special games running as part of an advertiser's campaign: last year during the run-up to the U.S. basketball championship, basketball icons appeared on the map at random, and you got 3 points for clicking on them.

If you just run the app for navigation or to see whether the traffic is bad, I don't know that you earn anything at all. I think you have to give traffic input to go up levels.

AH. Here's a wiki page about Waze levels and earning points. And toward the bottom there's a chart of the levels and what "honors" your icon displays. I have the mood icon they call "sarcastic" because it has glasses and looks just the least little bit like me. So now my symbol on the map is a little yellow Wazer with glasses and a shield.

[tropicsbear]

Ooooh, thanks! I dunno if Dad will really care, but Mom might end up thinking it's cute and start using her Waze more often XD

[lauand]

Yay! :D

[chomiji]

♥