Plowing into the new year

Printed on the back of the card:
Rotary snow plow in action at Moraine, Mile post 7.1 on the Whittier Branch of the Alaska Railroad. In this area, 100-mile-an-hour winds are frequent, causing heavy drifting of snow.
Published by Ellis Post Card Co., Arlington, Washington

This year I'm thinking of New Years a little differently. I can't help but think that some sober meditation is in order. This train slogging its way through drifts of snow is an appropiate image of what the new year has in store for most of us. The proverbial tracks we run are not always clear but we will get through what seems like insurmountable obstacles by persistence and determination.

Each year the Alaska Railroad publishes an art print commemorating the work and beauty of Alaskan trains. For 2009, Alaskan artist Taffina Katkus won the print competition with her work "Clearing the Way." See an image of the print at her blog Post Cards from Alaska. She used as her subject a rotary plow very similar to the one shown on this post card, photographed several decades earlier in Whittier, Alaska.

The best to you and yours in the New Year!