Surviving the Blizzard of '06

I survived the blizzard of '82.

And the blizzard of '97, & '03.

Now the Blizzard of '06.

Well, I certainly hope to survive it; it ain't finished yet!

Waking up groggy-eyed at 6:15 AM, we hit the snooze....

6:35 quickly rolled around and we crawled out of bed. It was too warm inside and too cold outside. But we persevered--we had to get to Bible Study. Because of various and sundry house repairs, we had missed the Study and the fellowship.

Leaving slightly before 7, we were encouraged because, although the wind blew through our winter coats, the snow was light. Driving down the highway to Village Inn would have been easily accomplished since the roads were not iced up and retained little snow.

But I knew in my heart of hearts it would not be easy. I could blame all the out-of-state-drivers, but frankly, it was plain caution that kept the traffic to a crawl. We would not beat the 7:30 deadline. It was 7:50 when we stomped into the restaurant on that cold morning.

Coming home (after stopping by the store--a non-too-prudent move...) we encountered, yup, more snow. Entering the loop to our neighborhood, we slowly rested the car as two other vehicles blocked the path. My normal modus operandi is to develop sufficient speed to ram through small snow drifts. Not this morning though. I helped one of the cars out. But I had to back into the main street and turn into the outgoing path in the loop to avoid the very drifts that captured the other cars.

I was home free. Slowly ascending the hill to our house, I retained my calm death-grip on the wheel while instructing my wife to remotely open the garage door so as to allow room for my planned acceleration through more snow.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

I bottomed out in the snow with the tires spinning most freely. I would have thought I discovered the frictionless wheel. Wearily climbing out of the car (really, the snow drift was over 18 inches), I grabbed the shovel and got to it.

I managed to pry the car out of the snow...

I am now warm and snug in our home writing wistfully of my time in past blizzards. I see the snow moving horizontally outside my window as the newscasters predict snow levels greater than the last 40 years.

But that's OK, just as long as I can buy my t-shirt: "I survived the blizzard of '06"

SDG