The snow turned into rain

The streets are clear now. It has warmed up and been raining off and on the last 2 days. Now PH can get to work.

When we got home on Christmas Eve, we wanted to rent a 4x4 to get us home and to keep so PH could get to work on Friday the 26th. But all the 4x4s had been rented out already. So we took a taxi home. We explained to the driver that we live out of town in a hilly, snowy area, and could he handle it? He said yes. But he still had some trouble getting us up the hill to our house.

We were glad to see that while we were out of town, our main road had finally been plowed. However, in spite of this, we still passed a Prius that was stuck on the hill to get out.

When we got home, we found that our neighborhood hadn't received services like mail/UPS/FedEx for a few days, and also it was very obvious that the trash hadn't been picked up in quite some time. All the bins were full to overflowing into big mountains of trash on the ground. Yuck.

But the conditions were better so that we could get the VW out and go into town and see if we could get snow tires or chains so that PH could get out on Friday. Another storm was coming in. Of course most of the tire stores were closed. PH went to Costco. There were no chains to be had and all the snow tires in the size we needed were sold out. Someone suggested to PH that he just leave the car at the top of the hill so he could get out on Friday. We thought that was a good idea and figured we'd do that on Christmas night.

On Thursday, Christmas day, the snow started falling with such gusto that I told PH we need to move the car "right now" or we'll never be able to. I don't think he believed the tone in my voice until he finally looked out the window for himself.

So we bundled up and with some effort got the car out of its parking space and onto the road. There was no place to park at the top of the hill, so we kept going. We ended up leaving the car completely on the other side of the hill and walked the 2 miles back home. It took over an hour to walk 2 miles. So we knew that PH had an hour commute just to get to the car, then another hour and a half on the road. I hope the hospital appreciates him, I really do.

The walk probably took so long because we kept stopping to look at the beauty of the forest where we live, now covered in a foot of snow. We saw animal tracks in the snow, and hills that were still untouched even though the snow had been sitting there going on 2 weeks. I wished I had a sled. I was tempted to just fall down and make a snow angel.

Our snowed-in neighbors were saying the Grinch stole our Christmas. Travel plans had to be postponed and the presents didn't arrive (even now, I'm still waiting for a delivery of steaks that was supposed to be here several days ago...I say the Grinch stole my steaks). But I enjoyed it, and our walk home on Christmas day.

We still don't know exactly how normal this is. We've heard every year, every 5 years, every 10 years. I guess it's worse in neighborhoods like ours, which has opened our eyes to the kind of property we need to be shopping for...not just the kind of car we need to get, as we have been told that even a 4x4 with chains is not good enough for the hills. It's bad enough that PH's job is 50+ miles away on a sunny day. If there's any possibility that we would be snowed in for a week or a month or more, that is bad news for his job. A snow day is allowable. A snow month is not. My dream house is not on flat land, but I guess now it has a flat driveway.