Pictures of Snow and Ice

Our chainlink fence in ice. Rob took the picture this morning. Beautiful, isn't it?

Well, Snow Day #4 is upon us. That means Miciah had the whole week off.

Yesterday I got a call from the dentist's office. Miciah had an appointment today (Friday) at 8:30 am. 8:30 was perfect, because then she could be in and out and to school on time. (Her last appointment was supposed to last 15 minutes and it took us 3 hours, all included. She missed almost an entire day of school.) So when they called to confirm the appointment, I was surprised to hear that the appointment was at 1:30 pm. What? I told them I wasn't willing to take her out of school for so long for such a short visit. "That is," I joked with the lady on the phone, "If they have school at all. Ha ha."

Ha ha, indeed.

They let me re-schedule the appointment for yesterday afternoon, which was fine. Miciah didn't have school yesterday! I called and asked Rob how the roads were. He said they would be alright, and the worst part was just right out on NorthBend in front of our house, but that wasn't a problem, really. Okay. He decided to come work from home and watch the boys so I only had to take Miciah. What a doll he is! He called to tell me he was coming home. He called 10 minutes later to tell me that he was stuck. He couldn't get out of the snow he'd parked in. Nice. He said he'd call back in another 10 minutes to either say he was on his way and out of the snow, or he'd meet me at the appointment to help with the boys since he couldn't get his car out. Thankfully a couple stopped to help him push his car out.

NorthBend wasn't "too bad". Right. It was horrible! I was shocked, actually, with how bad the roads still were. The rest wasn't too bad, though. And the trees were gorgeous. There's this one spot on the way to Children's. Going on MLK,Jr. Up that hill towards Clifton avenue. There are the same types of trees lining both sides of the street, and almost your entire vision is taken up with these trees. We turned the bend and then there it was. The Winter Wonderland. It always takes my breath away and makes me wish that trees ALWAYS had ice on them. ... Going down the hill isn't as breath-taking, by the way, because your vision isn't filled with the trees in the same way.

As an aside: That stretch of road is often one of the most beautiful sites in the city, in my opinion. In the Spring the trees flower and you're filled with this romantic spirit as you drive through the trees. In the Summer, the trees are green and lush. In the Fall, well, you get the idea.

Miciah and I were admiring the beauty of the ice and snow, but also the treachery of it all. There were cars that had obviously been at the side of the road for a while. They were almost entirely covered with that brown, slushy icy snow stuff that the plows had pushed to the side. Another car had a full foot of brown slush hanging right behind the front wheel well, just driving down the road like that. Crazy.

On the way home, we stopped by the library. You have to pass by Miciah's school to get to the library, and funny enough the roads were worst right in front of the school! That was almost comical to me. I was driving maybe 10 mph hoping not to lose control of the car. Maybe I'm a little paranoid (I did flip a car on its side in similar driving conditions. That same car, actually), but I was taking it REALLY slow. NorthBend on the way home again was even worse than I remembered it on the way there. It's a two-lane road normally, but not with ice and snow on it. There was one point where I was trying to be in the "right" lane since a car behind me looked like he was annoyed at my speed and wanted to pass me. The snow and ice, however, re-directed my car to the trenches made by other cars gone before. ... Fun times.

So, here are some images of the ice and snow.

This was taken yesterday afternoon-ish. It's the end of our driveway (still under an inch of icy slush) and our street.

Compare with the street today. Pictures taken this morning, looking up the street:
And looking down:Doesn't look much different than yesterday, does it? In the plowers' defense, there's a lot of city to cover, our street is insignificant, and it snowed another 1/2 inch (or less) last night. ... Oh, wait, I noticed a difference! The sun is shining today.

This is a picture of a chunk of ice:

It's not a good picture. I autoleveled it so you could see the chunk of ice better. It's about an inch thick, and Rob took it off one of our cars. The picture also shows our walkway, which was still under ice after Rob shoveled it. (He has since shoveled it again and it's better today, though not much.)

... About that chunk of ice from the cars. Rob was taking a trowel to our cars, to break up the ice. So I looked outside and saw Elijah walking around the van, full-on smacking it with a trowel! I opened the door and shouted, "Elijah, stop that!" Rob said, "He's doing it because he saw me doing it." I just looked at him, horrified that he was thinking that it was okay for Elijah to be hitting our van with a trowel. "You know, to break up the ice," he added. But Elijah wasn't hitting any ice, he was just hitting the van! ... Rob felt my subtle vibes and took the trowel back from Elijah.

I have to admit, though, it was fun to break the ice off the car. Miciah and I spent a few minutes just kicking the car, watching the ice shatter.

The little tree in our front yard:

A picture I took. I call it "Gazebo and Ice": (Very artistic-sounding, I thought.)

And obviously, from the next picture, the ice and snow has made us all a little loopy:

I would LOVE to share with you the video clip I took of Rob last night being his goofy self. It's HILARIOUS! He has made me swear not to post it on-line, though.

To end: The dentist asked Miciah if she missed school yet. She said, "No! It's like a second Winter Break!" Indeed it is. Too bad we couldn't have planned for it. We could have been somewhere else this whole week!