My wonderful wife has already posted about the wonderful snow we've gotten at our wonderful home here in wonderful Colorado. I just wanted to toss out my observations about the wonderful event.
I was born in Tennessee. Not in the mountains mind you, but in the Chattanooga area. We got snow on occasion, but usually just a dusting while the mountains around us got the heavy stuff. We used to have this little penguin that would come on the news called "Snow Bird" to let us know when school was out. The rule was, when one school in the county was out, all schools in the county were out. Which was fine by us because one of the schools in our county was at the top of Signal Mountain so, very often in the winter, we would get a snow day when there wasn't even a flake on the ground in our area. So to me, snow was just this thing that got you out of school for no reason.
Ahh, Atlanta. I also did some of my childhood years here.Though snow would happen every now and then, we generally got ice storms in the winter. There was much made about these ice storms because they usually shut down power to the city and if you wanted to go anywhere, you had to spend about an hour scraping ice off your car, hoping you could get out of your driveway onto the roads that were never properly salted/sanded/whatever the hell they're supposed to do with icy roads, all the while, not getting hit by the few idiots that treated the day like it was any other day and trying to do 90 on I-75. I'm pretty sure these idiots were actually from Texas, but more on that later.
Then I got to live in Oklahoma! You're jealous right? Well, I actually liked it. There was even a couple of inches of snow accumulation every year (usually during spring break) and was my first taste of "real" snow outside of the time I tried to ski in West Virginia. I snow plow like no other. The snow in Oklahoma is generally mixed with a lot of rain so it turns into slush very quickly. You don't have to worry about the idiots on the road, cause it appears that they all seem to have some knowledge of how to drive in snow and ice. Or they could be like this one guy I know (you know who you are) and are constantly prepared for any and all eventualities. "I just happen to have snow chains/spare trailer lights/emergency raft/portable nuclear fallout shelter right here!" I love my family.
Cut to Dallas, TX. Where I was back to ice storms and idiots. A lot more idiots though. Where the misplaced State-riotism and Texas-sized ego in thinking "Texans can handle anything" lends to the most spectacular bad decisions during "extreme" weather. I mean, I grew up with ice storms. You use caution in doing all things because Ice changes everything. But these Texans, just another day as far as they're concerned. And they make mistakes. Lots of them. A little ice on the roads shuts the city down despite their bravado. And the entire time I lived there, it was never that bad. We got snow on Valentine's day one year, and the kids in our apartment complex went fucking insane. They decided they were going to build a snowman right below our balcony. Which was great for me because I am oh-so-terribly fond of the children. But I did have to laugh when they rather suddenly discovered that the area they were rolling the bottom tier of the snowman in, was the same area as the neighborhood dogs used to evacuate their bowels. Priceless look on the children's faces. I didn't see them again for the rest of the day.
Now, in Colorado, I get a completely different kind of snow. This fluffy white stuff is gorgeous. I didn't even realize snow could be like this. We went to run some errands yesterday, and we just brushed the snow off the car. There was no scraping. There was no ice on the wiper blades rendering them useless. Just fluffy, pretty loveliness that was only a slight inconvenience. When I was laughing about how nice my summer was temperature-wise, all my Dallas friends told me to "just wait until it snows. We'll see who's laughing then." Well guess what Texans: It snowed. Over a foot deep and it ain't done yet. I am still fucking laughing. I love it here. It definitely does not suck.
And now, some pictures!
The view from our balcony:
Our "Front" stairs:
Pretty tree on our way to do some shopping at the stores that were close enough to walk to.
My old floppy hat and puffy coat just can't stand up to this CO weather.
I just don't know if it's me...
The wife looks stylin!
Um... Plaid? Really?
I bought a proper winter coat at one of those close-by stores.
On the way home, The wife decided we should cut through this field...
...where the snow was pretty deep.
"I don't think we should cut through there honey." I say.
"It will be fun. We'll do it together!" she says.
I fell.
This is me indignantly stomping away while she laughs.
More trees outside our apartment.
Our car with snow on it.
Tee-hee!
A nice cross section of snow on top of the car to give you an idea of how much was coming down. This was taken at about 3:00 in the afternoon yesterday. It's about 9 a.m. now, and it's still snowing.
