we’re not used to snow

They brought in the National Guard to help out in the Gresham/Fairview area.  Fire trucks and ambulances are having real difficulties getting around.  I-84 is still closed.  Hundreds of semi trucks are stuck waiting for that road to open, and the highway dept. has been busy cleaning the highway. Portland and Multnomah County have declared states of Emergency. Supposedly we got 14 inches of snow.  Nothing compared to a lot of other places, but RARE here.  Biggest snowfall since 1968, they’re saying now.  Most snow here I’ve ever seen, anyway.

This is a (I hope) once in a life-time event here.  I’ve lived here since 1987 and have never seen snow last longer than 4 or 5 days.  Portland doesn’t see this kind of thing often, so we have little snow equiptment and have run out of de-icer – Magnesium Cloride – (no salt here – rots the cars) and so they have only been able to keep the main roads cleared.

Yesterday, I dug my car out in the parking lot and got it out on the roads.  Feeling cocky, I drove over to Alan’s place… and promptly got stuck on his street.  My Caliber has almost 8 inches of ground clearance, but it snowed more than that, and I got high-centered on Alan’s street.  It took us nearly three hours to get me back on the main road.  The next snowfall is coming tomorrow. My car is back in the lot downstairs, but I feel no overwhelming motivation to go park it straight.

I’m not even sure if I can get it straight.

Apparently I felt no motivation to turn off my school bus driving alarm clock at 5:05 am, and so I’m up watching the news…but I was soo tired after getting home last night that I was in bed by ten.  I’m not going to drive south.  It was a good idea, and I would have seen family and my brother, but leaving here now is not the best idea.  I got lucky last night, stuck on my friend’s street, but I could see that happening away from any help and becoming one of those statistics of fools who get stuck and… suffer for it.

The highways are bare… and speed is possible… but off the highways, it’s bad.

Up later, the pics I took yesterday of cleaning off my car and the layers of snow and ice on it.

I’m tired of snow.  It’s nice to look at, but sucks to live in – make it go away now please.

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