I believe my exact words were "Fuck this shit... I want my snow! I want my winter!" Will you look at that? Mother Nature abides.
We finally had a real snow storm, and it was just a terrible week that I couldn't enjoy it. I guess it wasn't terrible, but... lemme explain. It was President's Day weekend so I had Monday off. It was actually quite boring and I tried writing my new story, but all I got out of it was cleaning up the part I'd already written. That night it started to really snow. I mean REALLY snow. In the morning I woke up to a text from my fellow supervisor. The snow was too bad and she wasn't going into work. She only lives 20 minutes away and drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Umm... not a good sign. Then again, she had Monday off, and was taking Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off too, so if she didn't go into work that day she'd end up with a whole week off. So, let's say I was less than impressed that she "couldn't" get into work.
Plus I had my pride on the line. I've only let the snow stop me ONE time and that was in Fiona (my Focus) and before I had the loving comfort of snow tires. I wasn't going to let a little white fluff stop me. Then my boss gets on the text and says that she's under a level 3 snow emergency. Which means if she's caught out on the roads, she can get arrested (likely just a ticket, but still). Now, she's south of the facility we work at and the snow was worse there. I later learned she had 17.5 inches of the stuff, so I don't blame her for not coming in. BUT she told me to not even bother. Because... Mustang.
Yeah, that's like waving a red flag to me. You're trying to say that I wouldn't be able to drive in my car just because it has a lot of power, low ground clearance, and is rear -wheel drive? I ended up having a normal morning and then sending out a text to my boss and co-supervisor that I was heading out. That I'd either be at work in an hour and a half (it's normally an hour drive for me) or back home in an hour. As soon as I snuggled into Nina and opened the garage door, I knew this would truly be a challenge. The snow was deep enough that I'd be plowing it with my front splitter. And while I have a long driveway, I could see the road with only a few tracks and now plow marks going through it. I don't live TOO far from a main road, but really who wants to get their car stuck in a street and end up blocking the possibility of a plow.
But again, I don't let stuff like that stop me. If I could get through the driveway, then I should be able to make it through those streets.
I made it through the driveway without any drama. I made it into the street without problem. I made it through the neighborhood streets without any muss. There was a little slipping and sliding going from the neighborhood street to the main road because the plow HAD been through that one and there was more of a drift. But I made it over that since I had plenty of time... there just wasn't much traffic. Anywho, got down the main road, onto the highway entrance, onto the highway, and transferred over to the main highway. Now this highway isn't a country road or a 55mph 'state road'. This is a big Interstate highway that is a major throughway between big cities.
It wasn't clear. It was better plowed than any road I'd been on so far, but it still wasn't clear. There were only a few scattered areas of pavement and those were actually more slippery than the snow. That, to me, was going to be the highwater mark of road preparedness. The rest of my commute would be smaller highway, state highway, then country road. And the snow was supposed to have been worse in the direction I was traveling.
For a few minutes, I still considered doing it. Yeah, it might now take me 2 hours instead of an hour and a half, but I'd still be able to do it. I'd be white knuckling it and probably tense when I got to work, but still, I could do it. Then the SUV trailing behind me lost traction and went into the ditch.
I'm done.
Maybe if I were a floor nurse and my absence would have made someone else stay to cover my shift, I'd have gone in. But my absence really wouldn't do anything bad. AND I had my supervisor giving me more than permission, so it seemed like an easy choice. I took the next exit, took the main road, got into the neighborhood, got to my driveway... and got stuck at the bottom of it. GOD DAMN IT!!!
The driveway dips down a little from the street then is on an incline up to the garage. I knew that once my rear tires hit that dip, I'd have to maintain enough speed so that the momentum would help me up, but there just wasn't building up speed through that much snow. When I said earlier I was plowing through the snow with my front splitter, I'm more than serious. I later learned that there was 8.5 inches on the ground and Nina has 5.5 inches of ground clearance. The splitter isn't exactly the low point, but I was probably pushing a couple of inches in front of me at all times.
Thankfully she was actually out of the road, so I just left her there so that I could stew on it for awhile. I got out of my work clothes, into some comfy clothes, had another cup of coffee, and then went back to dig Nina out. I tried driving her out, but not dice. In snow mode or regular drive mode. With traction control on or off. Rocking her forward and back. None of it worked. So I got a shovel and cleared a path all around her, and specifically got in front and behind her tires. I got back in and was able to get her going, but only one third the way up the drive. I ended up doing that three times, but eventually got Nina back into the garage.
I knew I'd have to go back out and shovel the rest of the driveway as I'd put a huge pile of snow behind my brother's car, but I had a headache going on and was oddly tired. So I snuggled up in front of the TV and let myself take a nap. I figured my brother would be up in an hour or so and when he sat down with his cup of coffee, he'd wake me up. I'd hang out and wake up for another half hour, then we could either go out and tackle the drive together, or I could get it myself.
Yeah, my brother saw that I was napping and left me alone. Instead he went in and logged onto the computer. Then when he was ready and saw that I was still napping, he went out and shoveled the driveway himself. It turns out my nap was three and a half hours. And the headache was worse. And when I looked out at the white lawn, driveway, and street, the sun hurt my eyes.
FUCKING MIGRAINE
On one hand, thank god I didn't go into work because driving home through that type of snow with a migraine would have been impossible. I'm honestly not sure what I would have done. On the other hand, it's not like I got to enjoy the 'snow day off'.
Thankfully it was fairly mild, and the migraine was fully gone on Wednesday. Wednesday at work was catching up from the weekend, the holiday, and the snow day and nothing else. The snow was thankfully still there in all it's glory, but the roads were well cleared. One bad thing is lunch. I still smoke, so I take my lunch off the property (no smoking on property even in your car). Normally I park in an old car lot's empty lot and smoke/eat/smoke there. But it's abandoned so it's not plowed. Now I had to drive a mile down the road to a 7-11 and use their parking lot.
Thursday comes and... FUCKING MIGRAINE!!!! Yeah, that's two migraines in three days. Not unheard of for me, but pretty rare.
Friday was mostly scheduling snafus and a good day overall. Then today. So, I guess in retrospect, it's not a bad week just two horrible days.
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