Snow Day!
So the prediction of of gloom, doom, and a butt-load of snow have been ringing in our ears here in northwestern Illinois for the last week. But thus has it been for the last 4 years or so, when the first real winter storm has born down upon us. Predictions notwithstanding, the "storms" we were supposed to have endured previously were anywhere from a few flurries to a partly cloudy day. It is my assertion that The Weather Channel is no longer so much interested in forcasting weather than it is increasing its own ratings via the Dire Prediction (Der Karl would be proud...), but I digress.
Anyway, I set my alarm for 4:30 so I could do the requisite first plowing of the driveway, and set into a fitful sleep. At the appointed time, I got up and spent about an hour or so clearing out my driveway, the berm left by the municipal snowplow that, miraculously, plowed our street before I did the driveway(!), and feeling charitable, also removed the berm from my neighbor's driveway, so that at 6 he could exit his driveway unencumbered.
Then the Three S's\ufffd in preparation for my daily pilgrimage to Waukesha, WI.
On leaving the house an hour later, I noticed that the snow was really coming down...or more accurately really coming sideways; a 30 mph wind will do that, donchano. But onward north. From my house, I take surface streets to US41 north at Ill Rte 173, which is a half mile or so south the border with Terra del Cheese. The trip to the Wisconsin border usually takes about 12-15 minutes, depending on traffic lights. Today, it took 50 minutes! Damn! I'm gonna be late for my all-day meeting. So I fumble for my cell to call and say I wil be late. How late will I be? Well, I'm here on I-94 going north...speed limit is 65 (which, after much trial and so far no error, I've discovered that 75 is the actual limit you can safely go without raising the attention and subsequent ire of the Kenosha and Racine county gendarmerie). But I can barely get up to 30 mph. ETA is somewhere between 1:30 and 11:00! The freeway was plowed, but since that time about a half-foot or so of snow has built back up. There is basically 1 lane of tire tracks on this otherwise 3-lane-in-each-direction strip of pavement, and no one is going anywhere fast.
I make my call, and the guys there basically tell me the meeting is cancelled due to lack of both interest and a quorum, and so I decide to return home. Snow Day! Off the freeway at the first exit in Wisconsin, and a slow, lazy trek back south on the surface streets.
Which are in a state of white-out. Southeastern Wisconsin is more than a little rural, and the corn fields magically blend into the streets and the swirling blizzard in a cacaphony of white. Occasionally, I find a streetsign or a wayward vehicle in the ditch to mark the boundaries of the road. I pick my way carefully back south and somehow arrive safe and sound at my front door (or more accurately at my garage door). I have been gone for about two hours, and have traveled about 25 miles total. It's been about three hours since I plowed the driveway, and there is more snow on the driveway now than when I plowed it at a quarter to 5 this morning.
I. Am. Not. Ready. For. This.
\ufffd Three S's == Shit, Shower, and Shave
