Now that things are finally winding down and my long trip back to Ann Arbor is looming ahead, I've been checking the omens and portents, because more than anything else, I want to avoid driving in snow or ice.

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, and an exceptionally vicious one:

Staten Island's famous groundhog, Charles G. Hogg, inexplicably bit Mayor Bloomberg during his annual holiday ceremony on Monday, drawing blood from the billionaire.

From a political standpoint, a good argument can be made that gun-grabbing billionaires like Bloomberg deserve to be bitten by groundhogs, but I'm not sure the marmot in question was politically astute enough to be thinking about the man's unconstitutional, regionally-bigoted war on guns (or even whether the new president wants to help enable such tactics).

My worry is the weather.

What are the implications? Ominous, I'd say, if 18 inches of snow in Indiana is any indication.

Obviously, I have enough sense that I'll be taking the southern route (probably US 40), but that only remains southern as far as Missouri, and I have to head north.

I've been trying without success to discover a southern route to the North, but the maps don't help.

Any ideas?

(I realize that if I head far enough South and hit Antarctica, I'll be headed North, but that's not a workable plan. There has to be a way....)