When we first moved to the Midwest, my winter driving skills sucked. I’d just spent 20+ years in the Portland metro area, where snowfall is rare. One inch of snow snarls traffic and shuts down the city, so I didn’t get much practice.
In a timely coincidence…
This was a Sunday. So, I was housebound for five days, too skittish to hit the road. For what was probably just a couple inches of snow.
(And La Croix? What’s up with that?!)
Once we arrived in Rapid City, I quickly adapted to getting around in the snow. Not that I had much choice; our first winter was particularly brutal, so it was either sit home and become a hermit, or man up and learn to drive in the snow. I manned up.
(A year and a half later we all became hermits. Thanks, COVID.)
I’ve gotten pretty comfortable navigating snowy roads in the years since, and no longer panic whenever the forecast calls for snow. But there are occasional exceptions, and Wednesday morning was one of ’em.
One of the first things I do after getting up is check the weather. It was 34° with a little light rain falling at 5 a.m. No biggie! But when I pulled out of the garage at 6:45, the ground was covered in snow, and the temperature had dropped to 21°.
My parting words to Tara? “I hope we didn’t get a flash freeze!”
CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC.
I knew something was up as soon as I started my car. Google Maps pops up automatically when I fire up Android Auto, and it showed 1 hour and 10 minutes to work. WTF? The drive normally takes 45 minutes! Which meant I was already hopelessly late before I even pulled out of the driveway. And when I did, it was immediately evident the roads were icy and treacherous. Driving through town, a pickup truck was going sideways down Main Street.
“What a show-off,” I muttered, but then other cars started sliding. When I started sliding too, I decided to cut my losses, turn around, and work from home. The plows were just hitting the roads, because the flash freeze (a sudden, rapid drop in temperature (often from above freezing to well below 32°) that causes moisture on surfaces like roads and sidewalks to freeze almost instantly into clear, dangerous ice, creating hazardous conditions with little warning – thanks, Google!) had caught everyone off guard. It was like driving on a skating rink. Just about the slickest roads I’ve ever experienced.
But first, I had to hit the Dunkin’ drive-through, because I’d ordered a latte and breakfast sandwich through the app before realizing how bad the roads were. I briefly considered chalking that up as a loss, but hey, ten bucks is ten bucks, and I’m a cheap bastard. Luckily, I was able to retrieve my order, and made it back home without incident.
Staying home was the smart move. Traffic was at a crawl for a 20+-mile stretch of Highway 12, my route to Madison. Between the icy roads and white-out conditions due to blowing snow, a bunch of drivers ended up in ditches. Just an ugly, ugly day to be commuting to work. My boss was totally understanding and said I should never feel badly about working from home when the weather is bad; that’s what the policy is for, and no job is worth risking life and limb for.
I love how compassionate my employer is. Thank you, CheeseGov!
No beetle, but how ’bout a deer?
Today is my Friday. Tara’s, too. We were originally planning a trip to South Dakota tomorrow for the Burning Beetle festival, but decided to bag that because, as I mentioned above: cheap bastard. (Plus, did we really want to spend 22 hours of our precious four-day weekend behind the wheel of a car? That’s a big, fat nope.) We did not, however, cancel our pre-approved PTO. Monday is already a holiday, and any opportunity to turn three days’ off into four is welcome in my book. Tara actually took Tuesday off, as well. She’s a wizard at maximizing vacation days.
We talked about spending a day in Milwaukee this weekend, doing the Historic Miller Brewery Cave tour, but it’s going to be super cold and windy and maybe snowy, so eff that. We’re going to run into Madison instead, do some errands, grab lunch. There’s playoff football on Saturday (let’s go, Broncos!) and plenty of chores around the house that need chor-ing. Oh, and I’ve got a book to write, so there’s no shortage of things to keep us busy over the long weekend.
I’m ending this post with a random photo of a sunlit deer in our backyard. The setting sun through the trees was hitting her just right.
Sort of a counterpoint to Rivergirl’s moonlit deer, if you will.
Mark My Words 
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