Cold Weather, Frozen Rivers And Giant Dogs

It was Sunday afternoon and the temperature was dropping precipitously. Indeed, we hit a low of 13 degrees below zero (F) that night. I'd determined to keep myself indoors as much as possible, but had to move my car to the opposite side of the street before Monday morning's parking rules took effect. So I bundled up and went out to start my car. But when I saw the beautiful sunny skies, I went right back in and got my camera. I then drove down to the Hudson River and took this shot of Albany's industrial zone on the other bank. Do you see that white speck atop a building? That's Nipper, the RCA dog:

Here's a closer shot of Nipper, one of Albany's favorite landmarks. It is one of America's last two remaining RCA Victor large Nipper statues. The owner of the building on which this four ton dog sits tried to remove it some years ago and incurred the wrath of many outraged local residents. Nipper is a beloved local landmark and is now being kept in good shape:

Here's a close-up of Nipper which I took a few years back:

As I prepared this blog post, I did a Google search for Nipper the dog and found this photo of him getting a new paint job this past October. What really amazed me was to see the photo credit. It was taken by my roommate/boarder, a person with a lot of knowledge about photography:

Anyway, while shivering beside my car on Sunday afternoon I snapped a photo of downtown Albany across the frozen Hudson River:

And this is the northern end of Albany's western shoreline. No, really - that does too make sense! Albany is on the western shore of the Hudson River, and this shot is of Albany's north end. I suppose I could have worded it better, but it was more fun this way :

I was standing in a small riverside park just a a block from my house. In warmer times, I used to take the dogs hiking along the river, beginning just at the end of this plowed driveway: