A White February

We, like a large part of the country, got slammed with this crazy winter storm. It didn't really kick up until the afternoon, so I went in to work. The problem was, once I got there, they weren't being very accommodating of people who wanted to leave early. Eventually I did anyway. Andy said it was starting to get bad, and he didn't feel comfortable waiting any longer, so I left work about 1:15. I should have left sooner...or about 15 minutes later. Long story short, the roads were terrible. This mixed with rear wheel drive doesn't make for a pleasant trip home. It wasn't TOO bad until we got almost home. The state highway we live off of wasn't really plowed, and we got stuck in the turn lane. I had to get out and push, and eventually we made it through there. We then made it to the street we live on, which hadn't been plowed at all. We tried and tried to make it up the hill, and we were about to give up and park at the bottom, despite the fact that we'd get plowed in. We decided one more try, and ended up in the ditch.

A neighbor and I tried to push out, but the way the wheels were stuck it just made things worse. I called a tow truck, and they said it'd be 30 minutes. As I was on the phone with them, here comes the plow. They did a round and then stopped and said they weren't allowed to hook up chains but they'd help try to push. As I was explaining that only made matters worse, a neighbor stopped on his way home and said he had chains and would run up and get them. He got back and started talking to Andy. He said, 'I'm no physics major, but I don't think I can pull you guys up the hill....', which was pretty true. They decided to pull us out of the ditch down the hill. After a lot of flopping around in the snow, they found something to hook onto under the Mustang and they were off. I stood in another neighbor's driveway and we watched.

Andy & the neighbor, hooking up ;)

He got him out, and the neighbor I was next to said something to the effect of 'All right, he got him out!', and I was watching and replied, "Yeah, now if Andy can get his car stopped before he hits the truck," which was punctuated by the sound of the 2 cars hitting. Our neighbor, who we think is named Justin(?) pulled Andy out & stopped and Andy had too much momentum and not enough traction and sailed right into his trailer hitch. Luckily it didn't do anything to the truck, but the hitch mount poked a square hole right in Andy's rear bumper. Definitely a huge bummer. Come to find out, the tow trucks were gouging people for $300/ditch, so in the grand scheme of things I guess it's alright. The bumper will surely cost more than that, but it's not money we have to come up with TODAY, so that part is at least a relief. Even after all of that, we had to push the car up the hill to my house, and at that point it had been plowed.

When we got home I was exhausted and dirty and freezing. We hunkered down in our pajamas and just hid out from the cold. In the early evening we heard something outside, and another neighbor was blading the driveway for us!!!

Neighbors make rural living preferable.

So now we're trying to figure out something to make/buy for them. Andy's thinking of smoking some stuff. Shocking, I know, but I think that would be pretty cool - way better than baking cookies or something like that...

Be safe out there. Or better yet, don't go out there.

Largely Frozen

When we got home from Audrey's apartment last night, I noticed this:

MONSTER-CICLE!

SNOW!

Toes in the sand....sort of.

I have to say, except for whole the trying to go places thing, I enjoy the snow. I want to play in it. And when it's dry and powdery like it has been this year I want to sled. When it's wet, I want to build a snowman. Andy does not share in any of these desires. He does not think, like I do, that there are few things more beautiful than undisturbed snow.

Something neither of us desires and must be done, though, is shoveling the driveway. After a sick day in the house today, we realized we had to dig ourselves a hole if we wanted to leave in the morning. We headed outside to shovel in the dark, and a quick 2 hours later we had a path cleared.

As you can see, I got sidetracked. My Wellies sure look dirty in the snow!!

After the Storm

I took this picture as we were leaving for work this morning. Isn't it pretty? I love snow.

Except for sliding onto the street we work on (no surprise there - in spite of the fact that probably 1200 people work on this road they never plow it or the turn lane to it), the trip was rather uneventful. I'm thankful for that - idiots everywhere in this weather....in all weather, but this weather brings it to the surface even more.

Snow Day!

Chillin' wit my dawg

It started snowing yesterday...hasn't stopped yet, and it doesn't look like it plans to anytime soon. We got up on time, and headed out to the driveway to start shoveling. There was probably about 4" at that point, and had Andy parked around the back of the house. I have a long driveway, and usually in winter weather we park up front so we don't have to clear the whole thing. We failed to plan this time, so an hour and a half later we'd reached the road. When we walked back up there was probably over a half an inch of snow accumulated where we'd started shoveling. My road looked terrible, and the meteorologist said if you wanted a drive time estimate to triple your regular commute. There were 13 interstate accidents at the time. I called in. If it were closer, or our car was better equipped to deal with these things (like maybe if it were even front wheel drive), I'd have come in. As it was, though, Andy wasn't very keen on the idea of heading out in it and I needed to study differential equations.

I got a lot of studying done, and I also created a Star Trek Online character and played it for breaks. It's actually pretty cool. Uh oh...

Now there's probably 6". It's beautiful, and I want to play in it. Andy doesn't share either of those sentiments. :(