So we had this little thing called a Nor'Easter come thru yesterday. One Weathercaster on the Nightly News (national, not local), called it a "Snow Bomb". Er, no, this is New England, it snoows, we get Nor'Easters on a regular basis.
Anyway, I got up at my usual time. Instead of working out, I shoveled about 6" of snow off the deck and to the dog pen. WS did the front walk and swept off the vehicles. Took a shower, made my lunch and put the dogs out in the pen. By that point, I had to re-sweep off my car as it had snowed an additional 2" in that time. I left about 20 minutes before usual. No plows had been thru on our road, but I made it up to 149 no trouble.
The 10 miles to Weare was not pretty. The visibility was poor (snowing very hard and very dark). Althought 149 had been plowed on our side, the Weare side had not been plowed, so it was almost impossible to tell where the road was. I caught up to a Jeep Wrangler - I was doing 20 - been thru this no visibility scenario for 20 years, experience counts).
At the end of the road, there was some sort of to-do, so I had to make a slight detour to make it to 114. That road was better, it had been plowed and there were street lights every so often to help with visibility. I eventually made it to work at 7, taking about 1 hour and 15 minutes to travers the 25 miles.
A couple of other people showed up before 8, then the facilities manager came thru and said they were shutting down and everyone had to leave by noon for "safety reasons". I'm thinking that it would be safer to stay there as the snow was supposed to wind down between 1 and 2.
But, oh well, I left shortly before noon. Got stuck in the far end of the parking lot (when you can't see the difference between the plowed and un-plowed portion, it makes things tough. Walked back to work to find peopel trying to push a car out of a drift. Helped them push, then recieved a push from them (everyone jumped into a big, tall truck to drive to my car), got unstuck and made the drive home. Another hour and a quarter or so.
Started shoveling. Found another 18" or so where I had already shoveled, and close to 22" where it was fresh snow. Not the biggest storm we have had, but the biggest we have had in the last year or so.
Shoveled for a couple of hours (well, 3 - 40 minute stretches) before WS got home. He snowblowed the driveway (which the neighbor had taken one pass thru with his plow after the mail lady got stuck in the ditch).
This was the first big test for the Patriot, and it did just wonderfully. It handled the snow filled roads very well. Getting stuck in the parking lot was totally my fault as it was cruising thru the snow until I let my foot off the gas just a little, then it sunk like a rock (I suddenly realized how deep the snow was and in reaction to the surprise, lifted my foot just a bit). I cruised thru snow that was as deep as half way up my door (getting out was a bit of a challenge) for at least 100 feet and would have made it to the tire tracks I was headed for if I had't been such an idiot.
Anyway, sure, it was a decent sized storm, but seriously, a "snow bomb". Nope, just a regular, run-of-the-mill Nor'Easter.
Yikes! It was a hell of a snow! 22"? Man, that's a lot of shoveling to do. You sure need a lot of firewood to keep you warm these days! Take care..
Posted by: Brad Fallon | January 14, 2011 at 08:49 PM
Bogie--I'm thinking that with all of that shoveling, you are putting out the BTUs at a pretty good rate, yourself.
All I can think of with all of that snow is the amount of snow ice cream I could make/eat. With our 2-3 inches of snow, I had snow ice cream for four meals!
A parking lot isn't a bad place to be stuck, usually, because there are usually lots of other people around. I got stuck in the Chevelle (you may remember how poorly it handled in the ice/snow of Colorado) in the parking lot at work, once. All sorts of people came out with Jeeps & other 4WD vehicles (not so common in those days - 1979 or 1980) to get me out.
Posted by: Cop Car | January 15, 2011 at 09:46 AM