Post by neko008 on Feb 21, 2013 19:02:27 GMT -6
Dear LOTOpeeps. Thanks for your concern about my commute home today from the office. I apologize for taking so long. I live about 45 miles northeast of the nest, so I got the same weather we were all seeing there. I went to the office, and stayed. Finally, the office closed, and I set out about 2:30 to come home.
I had told you it should be a short trip. It’s only 1.5 miles between home and office, and I had packed gear so that – should I need to – I could hike home from the office. So it should not have taken me two hours to get home, but it did. Looking back now, I wish I had just left my car at the office and hiked home. It would have been shorter.
Here’s the saga, for those of you who want to know.
First, in the office parking lot, it took me about ½ hour to clear my windows and dig-out the huge snow/sleet-drifts that had accumulated around my tires so that I could try to drive. Our grounds crews are usually good with the parking lots, but today’s snow must have just come too hard and too fast for them to keep up with it.
I got all that done, and headed out. Usually, our town is remarkably good about snow-clearance on the streets. But not today.
I “spun out” on the way home, leaving my car with one end up against a curb and the other end jutting out dangerously into the street. I judged that I had to dig it out, because it was a hazard. So I walked the rest of the way home, retrieved my snow-shovel, returned to the car, and dug it out so that I could drive it again … or at least get it out of traffic.
Of course, through all that time, the snow and ice-pellets were continuing to fall. I was feeling a lot like Elsie with her ice-covered beak that we saw today.
So back in the car I went, making my way home. My uphill street hadn’t been very well plowed, but I thought I could get up a head of steam and make it into my grass/gravel driveway. Not so. I got halfway off the street and into the driveway but no farther. I was halfway onto the sidewalk and halfway jutting out into the street. Oh, cripes! There I was, posing another traffic hazard.
So back to the snow-shovel, to try to get myself into one or the other -- up to the driveway or down to the street.
There was one hilarious moment during all that shoveling: I had made pretty good progress clearing the snow from the front and rear of my tires. All of a sudden, I heard a distant rumble. It was a snow-plow bearing down to clear the street. Yikes! Of course, the plow was shoving all the snow to the curb, which was precisely where I was trying to get my car OUT OF! I laid my shovel against the car, and made a pleading gesture toward the approaching snow-plow driver, BEGGING him not to throw still more snow up against the back of my car. Bless his heart! He immediately angled the blade the other way, so he passed by without adding more snow in my way.
So I continued digging and eventually got enough snow cleared that I could move my car a few feet forward into the driveway, out of the street.
And then I came inside, sweating profusely from two hours of work in the below-freezing temperatures in THREE different digging-out episodes. Logged on, said I was ok, and that I needed to get an adult beverage and change my drenched clothes.
Did I get any photos of my adventure? No, I did not. I had tucked my camera in my coat pocket, thinking I might take some photos. But in all the drama, I totally forgot it.
Thank you for your good wishes. I am glad I am home and safe and warm. I am glad Thumper didn’t get freezing rain. And now I’m back to watching Elsie and Einstein on their snowy nest.
I had told you it should be a short trip. It’s only 1.5 miles between home and office, and I had packed gear so that – should I need to – I could hike home from the office. So it should not have taken me two hours to get home, but it did. Looking back now, I wish I had just left my car at the office and hiked home. It would have been shorter.
Here’s the saga, for those of you who want to know.
First, in the office parking lot, it took me about ½ hour to clear my windows and dig-out the huge snow/sleet-drifts that had accumulated around my tires so that I could try to drive. Our grounds crews are usually good with the parking lots, but today’s snow must have just come too hard and too fast for them to keep up with it.
I got all that done, and headed out. Usually, our town is remarkably good about snow-clearance on the streets. But not today.
I “spun out” on the way home, leaving my car with one end up against a curb and the other end jutting out dangerously into the street. I judged that I had to dig it out, because it was a hazard. So I walked the rest of the way home, retrieved my snow-shovel, returned to the car, and dug it out so that I could drive it again … or at least get it out of traffic.
Of course, through all that time, the snow and ice-pellets were continuing to fall. I was feeling a lot like Elsie with her ice-covered beak that we saw today.
So back in the car I went, making my way home. My uphill street hadn’t been very well plowed, but I thought I could get up a head of steam and make it into my grass/gravel driveway. Not so. I got halfway off the street and into the driveway but no farther. I was halfway onto the sidewalk and halfway jutting out into the street. Oh, cripes! There I was, posing another traffic hazard.
So back to the snow-shovel, to try to get myself into one or the other -- up to the driveway or down to the street.
There was one hilarious moment during all that shoveling: I had made pretty good progress clearing the snow from the front and rear of my tires. All of a sudden, I heard a distant rumble. It was a snow-plow bearing down to clear the street. Yikes! Of course, the plow was shoving all the snow to the curb, which was precisely where I was trying to get my car OUT OF! I laid my shovel against the car, and made a pleading gesture toward the approaching snow-plow driver, BEGGING him not to throw still more snow up against the back of my car. Bless his heart! He immediately angled the blade the other way, so he passed by without adding more snow in my way.
So I continued digging and eventually got enough snow cleared that I could move my car a few feet forward into the driveway, out of the street.
And then I came inside, sweating profusely from two hours of work in the below-freezing temperatures in THREE different digging-out episodes. Logged on, said I was ok, and that I needed to get an adult beverage and change my drenched clothes.
Did I get any photos of my adventure? No, I did not. I had tucked my camera in my coat pocket, thinking I might take some photos. But in all the drama, I totally forgot it.
Thank you for your good wishes. I am glad I am home and safe and warm. I am glad Thumper didn’t get freezing rain. And now I’m back to watching Elsie and Einstein on their snowy nest.