Let it snow!

Snow is a rarity here in the Pacific Northwest, so when it falls we get very excited. Because we are not equipped to handle snow here, even a skiff causes the cancellation of school, panic on the roadways a run on the grocery stores for essentials.  

Every few years we will get a surprise snowstorm. Sometimes it's a big event, like 2008, when so much snow fell two weeks before Christmas that the entire city shut down. We were literally housebound for 10 days before Christmas (the roads were as slick as a skating rink), which was the best gift I could have asked for!  But most years we get nothing or a tiny bit of snow that melts in a few hours.  

Last Friday a storm was forecast, but snow was not foretold. What do you know - the weatherpeople were wrong!

Joseph was getting over a bit of a cold, but we couldn't let a little illness keep us from playing in the snow.  So we did. We started in our back yard.

Checked out the icicles on Bailey's car

And then decided to try out the neighborhood sledding hill

Which was kind of a bust because the snow was too powdery to be slick.  But it was worth a try!

After awhile we decided to head back home.  And this is when I made a real mistake. Having not driven on snow recently, I somehow forgot how difficult it is to drive up a snowy hill.  The road that I took home was a very steep. I got about 2/3 of the way up before my wheels started spinning. That was bad enough, but then I started sliding down the hill.  I somehow maneuvered the car to the curb which stopped my downward slide and was trying to figure out what to do next. In my exuberance to get out in the snow I had forgotten my cell phone at home. We were in an isolated part of the neighborhood and there weren't many houses around, so I figured we would have to leave the car stuck and walk home or to a neighbor's house. 

Right at this moment I saw a big Fedex truck at the top of the hill. I saw the female driver look a little confused at my snowstuck vehicle, and then I realized she intended to come down the hill.  "Nooooooo," I shook my head at her, panicked by the implications. Undaunted, she began the drive down. And she immediately began to slide, of course. The narrow road has a steep dropoff on one side and her truck was fishtailing back and forth very close to the dropoff, and then she corrected and started sliding directly toward where Joseph and I sat in the van.

(Dan pointed out to me that these events must have happened in mere seconds, but they felt much longer to me.) 

I realized immediately that we were going to be hit - HARD in just a minute by a very heavy vehicle, and then both of us would slide the rest of the way down the hill or would go off the dropoff on the other side of the road.  I quickly moved my car away from the curb and started sliding down the hill again. And then. . . . surely I must have had guardians angels watching over me. I knew without really looking that there was a small alleyway off to my right. It was covered by snow and not really visible - a roughed-out road being used for the construction of a nearby home. I turned the steering wheel sharply and somehow backed myself into the alleyway, a half second before the truck careened by the spot where we had been stuck in the snow. 

Let me pause this narration to point out that Bailey recently took her driver's test and was tested on backing around a corner. This is pretty hard for the teenagers to master, and I pointed out to her that I didn't think I could back around a corner. Well, it turns out I can. At least I can when my life and the life of my child are in danger. 

The Fedex driver was able to stop her slide by running into the curb a few hundred feet down the hill and she got out to apologize. I was still in shock and told her that it wasn't her fault. The road was just plain scary. After I composed myself, Joseph and I inched our way down the hill and home.  

And that was my scary snow experience.  Because our roads are narrow and hilly and aren't cleared or salted, there is probably a good reason that everything is cancelled when it snows!

The bitter cold has continued now for a week and a little bit more snow has fallen. This morning was a 2 hour late start for school and more snow is forecast in a few days. By the weekend we are supposed to get rain and warmer temperatures. I feel torn about that. On the one hand, I'm tired of being freezing cold and trying to talk my kids into wearing warm coats when they go outside (they are used to just wearing hoodies or light jackets all winter). But, the snow is beautiful and it makes it feel like Christmas. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Washington!