More Snow!

It seems that people in Portland don't have any more of a clue about driving in snow than they do in Atlanta! A heavy dump of snow began to fall early Thursday morning here in Corvallis, moving north to Portland by late afternoon. Since they didn't wake up to snow like we did, lots of Portlanders were at work when it began to snow. Hysteria ensued: abandoned cars, accidents that backed up the freeway for hours. There were photos in the Oregonian newspaper of pedestrians pushing cars up a notorious hill in Portland--the street was jammed on both sides with cars, people trying to get home, I hope.

Out here in the sticks, they don't plow the main roads; you can forget about seeing the neighborhood streets cleared. But with more snow forecast for the next few days, I took advantage of a lull in the snowfall on Thursday afternoon and spent one and half hours shoveling out my little car and my driveway. We had around 8" from the first storm; another 4 to 8 inches is expected from this second storm (it's snowing now as I finish up this post). I figured that I would rather shovel 8 inches then another 6 inches than 14 inches all at once!

Once I had cleared my driveway, I made a slightly white-knuckled trip to the grocery store for emergency rations: cheese, eggs, a box of brownie mix (a study break with a nice warm brownie and a cup of tea--who wouldn't like that?), and a box of wine (for when I am no longer able to cram one more factoid into my brain at the end of the day). I already had veg, chicken, rice, plenty of dog food and sundries on hand, and I made a pot of beans yesterday--we are set for quite a few days. The propane tank was fortuitously refilled on Wednesday--it's our main source of heat.

The snow is getting quite deep. I should say that I lived in Salt Lake City for a number of years so it isn't the snow itself that is amazing. It's that it doesn't snow all that often in this part of the Pacific Northwest. Nobody is prepared. All that shoveling I did? Used a regular old square-head shovel. I scrape ice off my car windows with a plastic spatula (been doing a lot of that lately with all the freezing fog). I've been studying all day and heard only one car go by--the UPS truck!

The snow is now up to Azza's belly. Since Mimi can easily walk under her, Mimi has completely given up on navigating anything but the snow-free zone under the house eaves. Harry was a bit more adventurous last night, crossing the yard to check the fence perimeter, but now that the snow level is pretty much up to his head, he's content to stick to the eaves too.

Mimi and Harry under the house eaves. Taken at 2pm today. The snow is already too deep for them to move around easily. And it continues to snow steadily!

Azza loves the snow. She bounds around like a crazed beast. She asks to go outside constantly and stays out there for 20-30 minutes. It's well below freezing. I don't know how she stands it. She has no hair on her underside!

Campus was of course closed yesterday and today. If the temperature doesn't rise over the weekend, I don't see how they can open on Monday either since nothing is plowed. Still, snow days don't mean free days for me. Since I'm not in class being buried in new information, I'm catching up on and solidifying what we've been buried in up to this point. Spent most of yesterday on cat muscles and French. Today it's been the gamma loop and sensory neuron pathways in the cerebellum. In between, I'm trying to cram in at least one hour per day devoted to working through GRE practice problems; I'm scheduled to take the exam in March.

Winter Fun

It snowed at last! We got between 6 and 8 inches in the valley. Here's some pics that Gosia took of the dogs playing in that deep powder--drifts were so deep that Harry and Gracie would disappear! Dyna didn't go on this outing. Her arthritis is acting up.

Gosia says I'm supposed to crop these images but that sounds too much like work.

Traveling to Northern Climes

We made it to Salt Lake City in good time and in good shape, leaving Keller around noon on Saturday and arriving Monday around 1pm. I made plenty of stops along the way for fun walks with the dogs. And as you'll see, the weather slowed us down quite a bit.

We stayed in the Quality Inn on I-40 in Amarillo on Saturday night. It was quite a lucky find as there was an arbor trail behind the hotel with benches and trees and grass verges on either side of a paved path that went for at least a couple of miles in both directions. Even in the dark of night, it was a fabulous place to let the dogs stretch their legs.

It was a beautiful but frigid 11 degrees when we left Amarillo on Sunday morning.

None of these windmills were turning (that is, none were generating any electricity) but I thought they made a nice picture in the early dawn.

Around Albuquerque, the dogs and I took a long hike and they stuck their noses down every prairie dog hole they could find.

After a very long day on the road, we at last ended up in Moab at the La Quinta (super nice and super dog friendly). I knew a winter storm was heading for northern Utah. All the forecasts projected the storm to hit around 11am the next morning. Imagine how shocked I was to wake up at 5am on Monday to take the dogs out to pee only to find an inch of snow on my car.

I immediately moved my entire travel schedule up an hour and revised my scenic route to the more conservative interstate route. This was a good thing because it took me an hour to go the 30 miles from Moab to I-70. I stayed about a quarter of a mile behind a snowplow the entire way as heavy snow continued to fall.

I-70 westbound takes you through some spectacular geology so despite the bad weather, I stopped for a few pictures.
But the weather turned really bad around Salinas. For about 100 miles, visibility was less than a mile and there was thick ice, snow, and slush on the road, often completely covering it. Temperatures were well below freezing so every fat fluffy flake stuck. I had several hours of white knuckled driving.

But we did arrive at last only to find that the GIGANTIC WINTER STORM predicted for the Salt Lake Valley simply failed to arrive, slamming southern Utah in a sneak move instead.

I close this post with a picture of Gracie and Gosia's Blink, 2 yrs old, wrestling. They are both in young dog with too much energy heaven.