After all the snow piled up on us, we had a tricky situation getting back to the midwest for the holidays. This is a run-down (the flight was scheduled for Sunday):
1. Wednesday: threat of snow, schools cancel, Studly Hubby works from home
2. Thursday: actual snow (4" ish), schools cancel again.
3. Friday: stays cold, snow doesn't melt (and city doesn't know how to remove it), which means schools cancel again. I slide down the icy sidewalks to work and somehow survive.
4. Saturday: stays cold, snow still hasn't melted, and the neighbors start trying to dig out their cars with garden shovels and brooms (nobody owns actual snow shovels and ice scrapers).
5. Saturday night: storm #2 moves in (snow from storm #1 is still on the ground). That story is below. Our flight got rescheduled from Sunday to Monday, thank goodness.
6. Sunday: we figure out how get to the airport on Monday. City is shut down, buses aren't going where they are supposed to. We buy a pizza from one of three open businesses in our neighborhood.
7. Monday: 3-hr trek to the airport. We hauled our luggage across 10 blocks of unshoveled deep snow, got on the freeway bus to downtown. The bus was absolutely packed with people that normally ride other routes or drive and nobody knows where to get off - we all collectively help each other find our stops and figure out how to get around an ice- and snow-covered downtown (which is extremely hilly and dangerous).
8. Still Monday: we transfer to the airport bus downtown. Everyone we meet is heading to the airport and dealing with cancelations or delays, looking both tired and wired. We expect the worst.
9. Still Monday: we arrive at the airport and check the flight board. Half the flights going out are canceled. Apparently many airlines are running out of de-icer. Our flight is still on, so we check in and go wait. The place looks like a homeless shelter, but without any beds. I feel tempted to hand out my spare change to the stranded travellers but remind myself that won't really help.
10. Still Monday: we board and fly out, on time and with no problems. I thank my lucky stars.
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5 comments:
That's what it is like here when it snows. Nobody knows how to deal with it and nobody has shovels either! I'm glad you and SH survived.
I keep wondering, If it's just that the people of Seattle want to pretend that it doesn't snow.
Yes, I think there is some mass pretending going on, haha And they like to pretend that if you can wait it out, it will always go away. Probably because it usually does. But when it doesn't, everyone is in big trouble. The funny thing is, it snows at least once every winter here so it's not like they've never seen it!
Wow, what an Odyssean journey! It's hard to have those unless you actually have an Odyssey...thank you for your epic struggles to get across the city, so that you could come here! We can hardly imagine such trouble, from where we sit!
Ever try to scrape your windshield with a credit card?
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