Forecast said “1-3 overnight, additional 1-3 in the morning then tapering off mid-morning.” I figured, 2hr delay for the kids, unless and maybe if it’s closer to 3" overnight and if it’s really dumping at 5am.
Well, guess what? It was dumping at 5am and still is! School was straight-up cancelled (mic drop) but my work, which often follows the local school cancellations... did nothing. So my wife decided not to take her 40+ mile commute this morning in the snow and stayed home with the kids, and I headed in to work.
My commute - when I’m not doing my normal ~45 minute cross-town round of kid drop-offs - is about 4 miles, nearly all downhill. If it normally takes me all of 8.5 minutes, today it took me 9.5 minutes. I took my wife’s Mini, which, while it does have excellent snow tires, couldn’t get up the hill to the nearest parking lot to my building, so I had to park at the bottom of the hill despite for once being at work early enough to get a prime spot. Oh well.
I heard from a colleague who lives ~25 minutes away that it took him 1:15 to get in, just due to cars struggling to get up hills, and various other accidents. Normally I roll my eyes at people struggling in snow in January, but it’s legitimately REALLY slippery. It’s a kind of wet, slippery, greasy, and relentless kind of snow that makes the roads about as slippery as they can get just short of black ice.
There’s a road leading through the middle of town that ends (starts?) on Main Street and the first 1000' is all uphill at a pretty steep grade. It’s accurately called Highland Street and I am sure it’s a total disaster right now. Put it this way: when snow comes late at night, it’s a popular sledding destination in the absence of traffic.
But I’m here. And a co-worker who is a bit of a car hoarder brought one of his few 4x4 options today, a vehicle that I have told him over and over that I will buy from him on the spot, any time, anywhere. It’s a 2013 Tacoma, extended cab, 5-speed manual, V6, TRD package, black on black, and I think he’s got about 15,000 miles on it. This might be the first time it’s ever seen salt. I already texted him offering to buy his truck again, just because it’s parked outside my window right now.
Terrible picture because screens:
