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Ohhh, my back hurts. I can't even get out of bed. It's all winter's fault.
Yesterday morning I woke up to find that we'd been absolutely dumped on with the snow. I live in the foothills of Salt Lake City, and overnight we'd got well over a foot of snow. I didn't have to work, but my wife did. So she took the car from the front of the house and I stayed in and slept. Around 10:00 that morning, I thought I'd get some exercise, since the gym was closed, and start cleaning the driveway. My wife parks in front of the house, and since we live close to the corner of our street, I park in an easement that goes to the back of our house so that we don't have to fight for cars. I thought that I'd clean her driveway first. I cleaned for about an hour until I finally had a path from the driveway to the street. At that point, I, having a fat lazy post-holiday ass, was really tired, so I went inside, waiting to clean the rest until the snow plows came to our street.
At about 2:00, I thought I'd check on the situation, and I found several nasty surprises. First, it had kept snowing so hard that there was, again, about a foot and a half of snow in the driveway. It was as though I'd never touched it. Second, our street, and every street within a couple blocks of ours, were apparently not good enough to attract snow plows. The snow that I hadn't shoveled was between my knee and my waist (and I'm about 6'4", so that's no small thing), and it was nearly at the same level in the middle of the street.
I started my task again, but this time I had to not only shovel the driveway, but make a path to the middle of the street where some intrepid individual had made a track of two lonely tire marks, in case the snow plows never showed. I did it. It took me about an hour and a half.
Meanwhile, my wife was working at the pharmacy in a grocery store that had been without power and telephones all day. The grocery department had to throw out everything that was refrigerated yesterday because of the length of the blackout, and I was unable to contact my wife. I had cleaned a section of road for her to come home, but it meant that she would have had to come a way that she wasn't used to, and she didn't know that. And her phones were down. I waded through three feet of snow for several blocks, trying to find her on the road, but I just missed her. She came home the exact opposite route from the one that I had prepared for her, and ended up getting stuck in a drift a couple miles from our house. So she walked home, I walked back with her, and we spent the next hour digging her out of the drift. The hour after that was spent digging her out of other drifts, most of which were in the middle of the un-plowed streets between there and our house. We had to enlist the aid of three sets of wandering strangers, and just as it was getting dark we pushed her over one last snow drift into the driveway-island in the middle of a sea of three-foot-deep snow.
After we got her in, I went around back to have a look at my car, which I hadn't been able to touch all day. From the street, if you look over a 30 foot driveway of snow, you can just see a bit of the back window and the roof poking up into the open air.
So anyway, we made dinner and went to sleep. When I woke up this morning, I was unable to move. My back is frozen into a very painful position. I dragged myself out of bed just long enough to stagger upstairs and notice, to no great surprise, that our street still hasn't been plowed. And my wife is due at work in an hour.
posted
oh, ugh, Speed, I think you got all of our Christmas snow. No White Christmas for Western New York. Boo.
I feel your pain, last winter we had the most tremendously snowy winter. My husband had to do snowplow work (he's in the Army, apparently engineers are in charge of snowplowing at West Point, not road-building...grrr...), so it was up to me and the neighbors to keep the sidewalks and driveways (shared) clear.
One word: snowblower. It's still hard work, but easier on the back. Totally worth the money if you are in a place with more than a foot of snow per winter.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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I think the snow hit all of northern Utah, so I wouldn't be surprised if Logan got it just as bad as I did. Good luck to your friends.
Thanks for the support, everybody. It actually makes me feel a little better.
I just read in the paper that this was the most single-day snow accumulation in Utah since 1984, and that the average driveway got hit with about 8 tons of the stuff. With that and pushing the car, no wonder I'm sore. I don't feel like quite such a pansy anymore.
Who else here lives in northern Utah? How did you deal with it? Did you leave the house? Did you lose power? Did the snowplows come to your street yesterday? I'm still waiting. Speaking of which, last night after we got done with our three-hour marathon of pushing our car through the blocks of snow-filled streets to our house, we turned on the news to see some guy complaining about how hard it was to get his car over the bank of snow pushed up by the plows in front of his driveway. We laughed, and considered sending the poor guy a sympathy card.
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My husband did most of the shoveling. We were in 30 inch accumulation. I'm a little worried about our carport, but I'm grateful we have electricity. My inlaws have been out since yesterday morning. We drove in it quite a bit. The thing is it wasn't the normal Utah powder. It was thick, heavy, barely frozen snow. Oh look, it's coming down again. We have been in a drought, and if we have to have a storm like this, at least it wasn't a day when the majority of people were working and kids in school etc.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ya, I be sore, too. I'm in NSL/Bountiful. Ended up being shoveling, come out 3 hours later and it was right back where it was again. We had the plow come through, and we had a snow bank problem like the guy on the TV, but we still made it out OK. My friend doesn't quite grasp the idea of driving slowly, so I had an oppurtunity to watch him slide into a curb.
Luckily we didn't lose power, but the block below us and all corresponding blocks on that power grid did, which means Wendy's was closed. I braved the snow for a Spicy Chicken Combo and all I got was more snow.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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You know, of all the things I've complained about, the worst thing about this storm is the fact that I can't find my copy of The Dark is Rising. Every time there's a blizzard I always read that book. The atmosphere created at the end of the book when they get snowed in is cool enough that it changes my perspective on the inconvenience and I'm much happier about it. But it's nowhere to be seen this winter. Maybe I'll have to walk down to Barnes and Noble and get me another copy.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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We got about an inch in Provo. I think everyone in Salt Lake County is making the whole thing up just to get attention.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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We drove through the nightmare yesterday on our way from Mtn. Home, ID to St. George. We had constant snow from Twin Falls clear through ten minutes past Beaver. Thank Goodness for 4WD! It effectively turned our little seven hour trip, into a twelve hour ordeal.
I heard about the snow - my cousins had to climb on the roof of their house in East Bounitiful to shovel off the snow. My uncle was afraid of roof damage.
So...this is a bad time to mention I turned on the air conditioner yesterday?
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Speed, and all the rest of you shovel weilding eskimo's, please be careful.
Few things in the world are more dangerous than a sidewalk/drive way full of snow and an out of shape do-gooder with a shovel. Shoveling snow kills many people every year do to stress induced cardiac problem.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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We went up to northern Utah from Las Vegas for Christmas. We got there the day before the storm started, and left the first clear day (Sunday). In between, I got the real winter experience, shoveling my in-laws' walks and driveway twice. They had at least thirty inches, and I think it was over 3 feet. No soreness, though, because I remembered how to do it without pulling anything. It's only been four years since I last did it, so I hadn't forgotten entirely.
On a happy note, the kiddoes got to build their first snowman. Plus, we appreciate our Vegas winter weather more than ever.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I am very jealous. My yearly Christmas wish is for snow but we were in the 70s this year. Have family in Utah without electricity. I don't like that part but would like a couple of feet of snow to enjoy. I don't mind shoveling snow but I imagine I would mind shoveling 3 or more feet!
Posts: 134 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Don't know about Speed, but I'm still alive. It's mostly just windy this time, so not THAT much shoveling, however, I was just out on the street getting a Sub Sandwich from Spanky's and the roads are very slippery indeed. Still snowing lightly, though. Power was out here until 11:30 (it's now 3:00). Watched the news, apparently lots of accidents on the highway.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Ya, I was wondering if any Jatraqueros were in that group. Glad too see you're able to be back with us, and get warm again, Rabbit. Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Rabbit, I was looking at your area's long-range forecast (well, not actually SLC's, but Logan's), and there is snow in the forecast like EVERY SINGLE DAY for the next ten days!!!!
I would have extreme cabin fever by the end of winter if I lived in Utah...
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Hey there. Thanks for worrying about me. I've actually been at work all day. They finally plowed our road Saturday night, but they didn't do a very good job of it. It's still like off-roading, but at least it's doable.
I did get a digital camera, and I did take some pictures. Here's some examples of what's been going on.
Here is Elona (Zemra) standing next to a cross-section of the snow in the driveway that I had to shovel.
This is Elona standing in the backyard, and this is me in the front yard. Keep in mind that the snow did a little bit of melting between the heavy snowfall and the time these pictures were taken. Not much, though, so it's a pretty good indication of what we're dealing with.
This and this explain why we're going to be sharing a car until spring.
Anyway, today was kind of windy and cold, but no more snow for now. They say more is coming, though. Oh, just another insult to the injury of my last story. It turns out that while Elona and I were spending several hours digging her car out of a series of snow drifts, we went through about a quarter tank of gas. When we were finally able to get her car out of the driveway, it was completely empty, and I had to coast to a gas station to fill up. This winter isn't getting any better.
While I'm on the topic, I have to confess a sin that may eventually result in my eternal damnation. Saturday night, before the snow plows came, we didn't want to risk going out any more. We were running out of food, but it was snowing again and we didn't want to leave the house, so we decided to call a pizza place, just to see if they were delivering. They were, and we ordered one. They said it would be 45 minutes, and an hour and a half later when this poor 19 year old kid finally showed up, in the middle of what had turned into another blizzard, we felt so bad we gave him about a 50% tip. We're true reprobates.
Anyway, Farmgirl and everyone else, thanks for worrying. It's nice to have someone concerned.
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