"Offseason in Truro," Cape Cod, January 2011

Left behind, originally uploaded by DC Products.

As a vacation destination, Cape Cod gets its share of visitors from Memorial Day through Labor Day. But it's a different scene in the middle of winter. Cottages are boarded up, stores are closed for the season, roads are empty and the restaurants that are open are more than happy to see you.

Sometimes you just have to get away, and with a friend housesitting in the woods on the outer Cape this month, my wife and I were more than happy to visit her on a cold January weekend. The signs in front of these North Truro cottages said "See you in May!" and the beach was empty, the waves lapping at the steps that lead down to the water and the wind leaving the sand flat and undisturbed.

"Winter near the mineral springs," Pennsylvania, December 2009

Near the mineral springs

"Pennsylvania" and "resorts" don't often go together in a word association game, but at Bedford Springs in the rolling countryside between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, the natural mineral springs and quiet surroundings have been a draw for centuries, even in winter.

Day 361 of 365

Pennsylvania winter road

U.S. 220 near Bedford, Pa., as we made our way home from Johnstown to New Jersey through a Currier and Ives countryside -- red barns and white farmhouses set in a snow-dusted field among the undulating hillsides.

Day 359 of 365

A wet white Christmas

This is Christmas in Johnstown, 2009: a light freezing rain pelts the windows and forming a crisp coating over the snow in the yard. Luckily, we're comfortable and warm inside, with no place to go all day.

Happy Christmas to all!

Day 357 of 365

Park between the candy canes

This house is just a few blocks from another Griswoldian effort in the neighborhood. Imagine if they'd been next-door neighbors. The main difference -- other than the 10-foot candy canes flanking the driveway of this house -- is that this house has a speaker on the lawn playing Christmas music, while the other one has a sign telling drivers to tune their radios to 94.1. That's some dedication right there.

Day 355 of 365

Tree rings

I've always been a bigger fan of multi-colored lights than white ones, particularly for photographs, so I changed this one up by going black and white.

Day 354 of 365

Now that's a wreath!

We're getting down to the final days of the year. I took this shot on my way into work to begin my final week of 2009, a lovely, abbreviated three-day week (Sunday-Tuesday). It was my first day in the city after the snowstorm, and while I missed all the whited-out streets and the Times Square snowball fight, I still found some not-usually-seen shots like this.

Day 353 of 365

Winter still life

Winter came down heavily today. Only two days after I heard we might get some snow this weekend, the flakes started falling lightly around 1 p.m. By 8 o'clock, street lights were obscured behind the white curtain and the roads melded with the curbs, the lawns, the sidewalks.

Every hour or so, Casey or I would peek at the view from a window to monitor the progress. No point in shoveling to keep ahead of it, I thought, because all that work would be erased by morning. Besides, I'm happy to give the two neighbors with snow blowers a chance to go an extra few feet to clear our sidewalks, as they've done in winters past without a request.

Winter has arrived in earnest a few days before it arrives on the calendar. The days may soon start getting longer, but spring has never seemed so far away.

Day 339 of 365

First snowfall

The first snowfall of the season started as large, fluffy flakes during a transition from an early afternoon of rain. It didn't make for the best photo, but as the ground chilled, the grass and yards soon were dusted with an inch or so of powder, and by evening the roads had a light coating as well.

Day 332 of 365

Dusk in the trees

The sun sets in Monmouth County on the last Saturday of November.

Day 331 of 365

Met Life reflected

The new condo building on 23rd St. seems to be finally completed, and it now provides an attractive reflection of the Met Life Building in its windows -- which is pretty much the only attractive thing about it.

Day 310 of 365

A winter sky

This was the first really chilly evening of the season. I relented and pulled out the heavier winter coat and wore a knit cap and a scarf for the first time, too.

Day 61 of 365

Summer's on deck

My half-birthday is marked by a nor'easter that dropped three or four inches in a couple of hours after midnight and probably six or eight by now. I'll lie low for a little longer, until I'm sure it's stopped, then head out to shovel.

Day 38 of 365

Earflop

Clark enjoys a romp in my friend's yard on a pleasant 50-degree afternoon in central New Jersey.

Day 37 of 365

Tree shadows on a winter afternoon

As I was scurrying around the internets on my laptop this afternoon, I looked out the front windows and noticed the bare branches casting their crooked shadows on the house across the street. My camera bag was right at my feet, so I grabbed this shot.

Day 28 of 365

This winter day

It wasn't a full-on ice storm like we've had in the past, but after two or three inches of snow fell, it turned to rain ... and then froze. However, it continued to fall, so I had to wrap myself up and go out to shovel the four inches of heavy snow and slush before it froze into mounds and sheets of ice.

Day 19 of 365

Green beneath the snow

It's been three weeks, yet our Christmas tree remains on the curb. Not sure what the deal is with that. I figured they would've picked it up at some point in the last 21 days. But as long as the snow is on it, the wind shouldn't blow it down the street -- as it has before -- then it's not that big a deal.

Day 15 of 365

15: Falls in black and white

As winter arrived in force this week, I drove up the road to Paterson to see the Great Falls in suspended animation. As I had hoped, snow and ice clung to the rocks as the still free-flowing sections of the Passaic River cascaded over the cliff. The bright afternoon sunshine prevented exposures that were too long (even with a neutral-density filter allowing for a few more hundredths of a second to be added on), but I managed to blur the falls enough to satisfy me, given the conditions.

It was a cold, frigid day, and so I toyed with the idea of taking a 20-minute ride east, back to Edgewater, where we used to live, to see if the Hudson River had any chunks of ice floating on it. Several years ago, when I could see the river from our apartment, sizeable icebergs littered the waterway between New Jersey and Manhattan. But thinking (correctly) that it hadn't been cold enough for enough days, I scrapped the idea. Had I taken the drive, however, I would've arrived on River Road within minutes of the US Airways jet's emergency landing.

Day 10 of 365

Snow on the hat

I'm going with this one as the photo of the day because, with Casey as the subject, it's a departure from what I've been posting. I don't think she'll mind. She did know I was taking the photo.

Day 8 of 365

Sun through the trees

With no particular idea in my head as to what I'd photograph today, I headed home from some afternoon errands and found the road took me up to Garret Mountain, a county park here in Passaic County not far from our house.

I love heading up there in the late afternoon as the sun sets. The view from the lookout at the top faces east, so you see I-80 and Paterson below you, northeastern New Jersey and New York City off in the distance. All is bathed in the soft, orange light of dusk.

I drive up to the "mountain" often. During the warmer months, I'll run the loop road -- a perfect two miles -- and I've found my way up there at this late time of day a couple of times since we moved to the area. The late-afternoon dusk is prime feeding time for the deer up there, and they tend to like this one particular clearing that motorists pass shortly after entering the park and following the one-way loop road. I knew they'd be there, but I didn't bother looking for them and first noticed the cars pulled over at the side of the road. There were a lot of them, and three or four cars sat there for a while watching them before moving on to the slow, quiet ends to our own afternoons.