Winter weather

I traveled north for the winter.  I drove.  A lot.  In the winter.  If I am driving in the north in winter I can guarantee you that I will be driving in the snow. 

I even drove through mountains.  Into mountains.  It was blizzard conditions on the first night.  Not a drop of snow until I was about 1 hour from my destination.  That one hour turned into about 2.5 hours.  Slow and steady.  Do not brake.  Do NOT brake.  Give plenty of room.  And do not get in front of a truck.  Slow and steady but we made it.  When I left the next day, I was driving in another storm...through the mountains.  I got stuck behind an SUV (with local plates) going about 10 miles an hour, in the snow, though the mountains.  You can not, can not, I repeat, can not go 10 miles an hour in a snow storm on unplowed roads, up a mountain, and expect to make up that mountain.  Safety sometimes requires a little bit of speed.

I did, however, opt to spend a night in a hotel one night, instead of driving up a mountain in a storm, on icy roads, at night.  My mom lives in the "high peak" region.  It just seemed safer.  Silly, too.  Since the hotel we stayed in was in a city that was not getting any snow.  We stopped because of the storm which hadn't reached the city we were in.  But anything north of the city had snow -- and it was in the mountains so no real hotels.

And now I am back home and faced with a storm.  I know storms are not the norm in this area.  I am also really aware that because it is not the norm people don't have a clue as to how to drive in any snow.  So for my own safety I stay off the roads.  I can drive in the snow (and seem to like too prove it every winter) but it doesn't really matter if nobody else on the road knows how to drive in snow.

So last night the snow started.  But the panic started long before that.  Ladybug has an early release on Monday.  They wanted the kids to get home before the snow started.  She was released at 1:15 pm.  We live right next to the school.  Literally.  I kept an eye on the website which listed delays and closings.  By about 5pm she had a delay for Tuesday morning.  Two hours.  Some time after dark -- after 7pm -- it started snowing.  Six hours after the early release we saw the first flakes.  6 hours! 

I watched the news.  We would seem accumulation.  Fun!  And then he defined "accumulation".  We were expecting anywhere from 1/10 to 1/5 of an inch of snow.  Say what?  Where I grew up that amount of snow would not even make the weather report.  Seriously.  I remember storms where we got 2 feet of snow overnight and I didn't even bother to check for delays or cancellations.  But it is different here.

By the time I got up Ladybug's school was canceled for the day.  To be fair -- there was a sheet of ice on my car.  But there was no snow on the ground.  None.  But ice is dangerous.  So we stayed home.  Actually didn't even bother to get out of my pajamas.

Ladybug's school is on a 2 hour delay for tomorrow.  Wait...it hasn't snowed today.  Why do we have a delay?  Don't argue.  Just shake your head and move on.  The website is reporting 758 local closings and delays for tomorrow.  I guess we will see what the morning brings.

Mean Mama