Saturday, December 19, 2009

Its cold in them thar hills part 2

Why is it that every time I move somewhere, they suddenly have the worst winter they've had in years?

Asheville got a blizzard yesterday. I thought when I left Michigan I was moving away from the snow! Ok, so it didn't snow as much as it does other places, but for a town that doesn't own snow plows or salt trucks, it was a lot. I think in our area it was like 10 inches maybe, but it was enough to disrupt the entire town. After I think 75% of the staff called in (or went home early), the store ended up closing at 5. I killed some time at work til Jay got off his work and could come get me, but it was very scary and slow going on the way home.

We saw dozens of cars spun out on the side of the room, and a few accidents as well. There was one moment where we thought we were going to get stuck, but after a few minutes of the tires spinning, we were able to move. However we did get stuck at the bottom of the giant hill we live on. A random stranger was nice enough to tow our car into a nearby parking lot. We walked about half a mile or so, then Jay's sister's boyfriend picked us up in his magic 4x4 truck & drove us the rest of the way home. After changing our clothes and grabbing some food, we went over to Jay's sister's house - which, as you'll remember, is only 3 doors down from us. There were some people over there, and he had some drinks and watched a movie.

Not terribly long after we got back to our place, the power went out. It had been trying all day. In fact, Jay's store actually lost power not long before he left. There was nothing much we could do, so we bundled up and went to bed. I woke up at my normal time because I was technically supposed to work. However, due to the whole "car being 2 miles away" thing and the "hill still not being plowed" thing, there was no way I was getting there so I called in and went back to bed. The power was still out, so we stayed in bed as long as we could. Even the cat was under the covers with us.

Sadly, eventually we had to get out of bed. Jay's sister was making a fire in the fireplace, so Jay went to help with that while I took a shower. Thank goodness the hot water still worked! The snow has started to melt a little, but as of right now our car is still inaccessible. I don't know if I'll be going to work tomorrow, but I definitely won't be in for my scheduled 4am shift. (Something about driving in the dark, in the ice & snow just doesn't sit right with me.

And now, pictures!







This was the next morning, when the snow was starting to melt. Not melt enough, it seems.









Over the night it got down to 47 degrees in our house. I forgot to take a picture until the heat was already back on.






And if you're interested, here's a story about Asheville's snow on CNN.

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