Since this DCist grew up in lake effect snow country, we always get a chuckle out of local reaction to an incoming snow storm. And this one, where snowfall predictions seemed to haved increased to panic levels, petered out at a modest four inches or so. (See Capital Weather for a detailed analysis of different forecasts, and check out what our friends are dealing with up in New York.) So to all those people who emptied local grocery stores of bottled water and toilet paper, congratulations for being tools of our fine local news stations.

But that isn’t to say we here at DCist didn’t fall for the weather forecast. We were actually getting excited. This DCist was hoping for more snow, as it would be a mechanism to slow the city down after a week of Inaugural overload.

So yesterday, after going for a hike in the snow, we got a ride down to the Jefferson Memorial to show a weekend visitor to D.C. the monuments at night, cast in a snowy glow, possibly the best time to see the monuments.

But when we reached Thomas Jefferson’s memorial, it was closed, guarded by a rent-a-cop. (Where’s Theresa Chambers?) So we had to settle for the nearby memorial to George Mason, which you can see in this camera phone photo (our digital camera was out of juice) …