Re: Snow

*Written mid-last week*

Snow is lovely.. however, we should not get snow the day before I am planning to spend 8.5 hrs in the car driving across a number of states.
I realize that this is partly my problem for deciding to drive north in January, but still. We haven't had winter yet, would it kill someone to have it hold off for another 5 days or so?

It didn't stick, but when I looked up this afternoon and saw it my first two thoughts were, "Hey, neat, snow!" and "Aww, bugger, I don't want to have to drive in this, hope it doesn't stick."

It hasn't and hopefully it will stay that way.

Snow is fine, when I have a functional transit system to rely on (as in St. Petersburg, Russia), or when it is restricted to mountains that I (or others, I'm feeling benevolent) visit with the express purpose of playing with it. I suppose it's fine anywhere it doesn't get in my way, that's what this really boils down to.

For the history portion of this story. I've driven in snow exactly twice in my life. Both times were last December (2005).

The first I was at the fire department listening to people talk politics after a regular drill night when someone looked out the window and said, "guys, it's sticking, anyone with a drive better head out now." Given that I had an hour drive, I did. It was fascinating. Anti-lock brakes feel quite strange when they engage. But it was just loose pack snow, no ice under it and I got home just fine.

The second was that Saturday morning. I'd taken a red-eye flight to Dulles airport and as I started hearing the news in the terminal I realized that perhaps the Thursday's snow was a practice run for my drive to Winchester. It's very unnerving to go pick up your very first rental car ever, and have to scrape 4 inches off snow off of it before being able to depart. The radio was suggesting that everyone who didn't absolutely have to be on the roads stay home, schools were closed, etcetera. But here again I arrived safely. I claim blind luck and ignorance because on that trip I also discovered why it is a very good idea to also scrape the snow off your roof, but thankfully I did not run into anything while attempting to look through the that had (until I came to a stop) been located on my roof and was at that point covering my entire windshield.

So yeah, snow is only good if I don't have to drive in it.

*Post-trip addition*

Boston has come and gone. I drove back Sunday night in some less than pleasant rain, but blessedly there was no snow.

Yesterday the temperature here was 64 here, today the weather forecast is for a high of 34. A 30 degree drop in temperature overnight. Whee! And there are little flakelets of snow falling. They're so cute.

When it started snowing in Seattle last week, people started saying to the weather, "Go East where it's supposed to do this." I replied to many with, "No, not until after my road trip this weekend." It appears to have worked. Our very unseasonable weather held for long enough for me to get home and a generous margin of error thereafter. Thank goodness.