Snowmageddon 2012

This week was full of inclement weather here in Seattle. At our house, which is near the bottom of a hill, we had at least 6-8 inches of snow, followed by an inch or two of freezing rain, and more snow before it warmed up. I get really irritated when people from places where it snows a lot mock us for panicking in half a foot of snow. Here's the thing, Seattle is completely comprised of hills, these hills are lined with curvy, tiny little streets. A snow storm of this magnitude happens once every 4-5 years so the city is just not set up for snow in the same way that other places are. The whole city has about 42 road de-icers but it would take at least 50 more to actually de-ice all of the roads. Meanwhile all of those massive trucks would have to be stored, maintained, fueled, and navigated down winding secondary arterial routes. Since we pretty much all drive smallish cars, most of which are only two wheel drive, the icy hills everywhere make it so people that try to drive are likely slide down hills into intersections without stopping. It just isn't worth it.

So we stay home. Restaurants, businesses, and roads are shut down and the whole city takes a few snow days. We sled down barricaded roads, walk through the empty streets, and watch our cars become slowly buried under snow and ice. I only had an hour and a half of work on Wednesday (instead of my usual 5), Thursday off, and a late start on Friday. Ricky was lucky enough to get all of those days completely off. Needless to say our week was pretty relaxing. We played in the snowy yard with Lucy, hung out with neighbors, and snuggled inside and read books. I read the first Hunger Games book and loved it; I went to the bookstore today and purchased the second two. Yesterday Ricky spent about an hour digging and scraping out our car. Every surface was covered in ice and the the top surfaces had several inches of snow on them. It took some serious work but he rescued our lovely new car and drove me to work. It rained yesterday for several hours. The rain combined with the temperature rise made everything super-duper slushy and wet.

When I woke up this morning the snow was almost completely melted. All that remains of the massive snow storm is that dismal dirty snow that gets piled up along roadsides. That is my least favorite thing about snow--the leftovers. It reminds me that winter magic is now over and that the cars are polluting everything as much as ever. Gross.

These pictures are from the first day of snow, it only got deeper after that. Ricky mentioned the other day that we never take any videos of anything so we decided to take a super short snow video so we can remember Snomageddon 2012--you all are the lucky recipients of this lame production. Hooray!