My first blizzard
Dec. 8th, 2003 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serenissimaThis weekend was exciting.
I don't think I've ever been in such a big snowstorm before. I grew up in a warmer climate, accustomed to just an inch of snow a year; the only other blizzard I've been in was, I think, in January or February of 1994, when my brother and I were so excited at the three inches of snow we got and the icicles on our gutters and bushes. We made a small snowman in the front yard, the only time that we ever had enough snow to make one.
The snow started in the middle of Friday, coming down in sizeable wet flakes, and didn't really stop for around 26 hours. I drove from my aunt & uncle's house back to my apartment, since if I had left my car parked in the street that night, it would have been A) plowed in by the snowplows and B) ticketed. Some houses had colorful lights on their bushes, glowing under a thick coating of snow. Everybody on the road was going no more than 20 or 25 miles per hour. The sky was light because of the clouds, and the snow on the ground reflected a lot of light back up, so the night wasn't as dark as it usually is. I had the public radio station on, and it was playing a wintry-sounding piece of chamber music. In those conditions, even the car repair shops and cheap motels I passed along the way looked pleasant.
Saturday revealed some impressive icicles hanging outside my windows. I think they got longer over the course of that day, reaching perhaps nine or ten inches in one case, like a crystalline dagger blade. I kind of wanted to build a snowman, but I didn't have appropriately water-resistant gloves. I could see squirrel tracks on the roof of the adjacent building. Early Saturday afternoon, two slices of bread appeared in the snow by the next building over. Maybe someone was trying to feed the birds. The bread didn't get covered with snow, so I figure the snow stopped around 2:30 PM that day.
I bought KMart's second-to-last long handled ice scraper for my car. I learned about clearing snow and ice off my windshield, and packed snow from behind and in front of the wheels. I broke bits of ice off my wiper blades.
Yesterday the sky was clear and sunny. I went to Ikea yesterday afternoon (and I am now the proud owner of a bright tomato-red sofabed). The dirty snow had been thrown against the highway dividers by the plows and stuck there, looking a lot like cement. My apartment parking lot remains unplowed.
So I got to see the good parts and the bad parts. I'm glad I didn't have to do any shoveling.
I don't think I've ever been in such a big snowstorm before. I grew up in a warmer climate, accustomed to just an inch of snow a year; the only other blizzard I've been in was, I think, in January or February of 1994, when my brother and I were so excited at the three inches of snow we got and the icicles on our gutters and bushes. We made a small snowman in the front yard, the only time that we ever had enough snow to make one.
The snow started in the middle of Friday, coming down in sizeable wet flakes, and didn't really stop for around 26 hours. I drove from my aunt & uncle's house back to my apartment, since if I had left my car parked in the street that night, it would have been A) plowed in by the snowplows and B) ticketed. Some houses had colorful lights on their bushes, glowing under a thick coating of snow. Everybody on the road was going no more than 20 or 25 miles per hour. The sky was light because of the clouds, and the snow on the ground reflected a lot of light back up, so the night wasn't as dark as it usually is. I had the public radio station on, and it was playing a wintry-sounding piece of chamber music. In those conditions, even the car repair shops and cheap motels I passed along the way looked pleasant.
Saturday revealed some impressive icicles hanging outside my windows. I think they got longer over the course of that day, reaching perhaps nine or ten inches in one case, like a crystalline dagger blade. I kind of wanted to build a snowman, but I didn't have appropriately water-resistant gloves. I could see squirrel tracks on the roof of the adjacent building. Early Saturday afternoon, two slices of bread appeared in the snow by the next building over. Maybe someone was trying to feed the birds. The bread didn't get covered with snow, so I figure the snow stopped around 2:30 PM that day.
I bought KMart's second-to-last long handled ice scraper for my car. I learned about clearing snow and ice off my windshield, and packed snow from behind and in front of the wheels. I broke bits of ice off my wiper blades.
Yesterday the sky was clear and sunny. I went to Ikea yesterday afternoon (and I am now the proud owner of a bright tomato-red sofabed). The dirty snow had been thrown against the highway dividers by the plows and stuck there, looking a lot like cement. My apartment parking lot remains unplowed.
So I got to see the good parts and the bad parts. I'm glad I didn't have to do any shoveling.