How big was your morning surprise?

My house was bombarded by 3 and 1/2 inches of snow last night. We are in the corner house of a 3 road intersection on the pinnacle of a hill. This morning we got to watch a ballet of cars attempting these hills. I decided to take the morning hours for administrative work rather than traverse the sketchy at best road conditions.

Normally when show hits the northwest it is a light dusting, a few pockets of accumulation here and there, and massive school notices. Naturally, following the notification that our children have a 2 hour delay or no school at all, social media lights up with the “SNOWPOCALYPSE”stories and “back in Minnesota we never cancelled school for snow, what’s wrong with Seattle?”

My wife went to a small school that is in the foothills of the Cascades and frequently tells stories of arriving on snow mobiles to 5th grade. I have cousins that grew up on the Eastern side of the mountains that got several feet of snow that would last all winter. People who are from these areas are correct, they could drive better in the snow.

Here in the Puget Sound we have elevation gains and losses on nearly every road. I must traverse 3 different hills to get to the closest grocery store. I’m not even close to living in a city either. Our heavily populated Seattle neighborhoods are extremely terraced roads littered with curbside parking that narrows the streets (and room for slipping) down to nothing! It doesn’t take much to see how much more challenging our road structure is to navigate that the flat, prairie land landscape of the Columbia Valley or any Mid-West location.(Seriously, flying into O’Hare is amazing, the Chicago skyline slowly reveals like a children’s pop-up book that turns from flat to 3D as you turn the page.)

There is also a difference in the type of snow we get here. This crap is wet, it gets pushed into ruts, freezes, thaws, repeat until gone. Whereas other areas that keep snow for longer time-frames tend to get a layer, it compresses on the roads, then they get a new layer. this repeats all winter. No quick thaw & freeze, #blackicematters

So yeah, our school superintendents are a bunch of wussies! They are delaying school for 3 inches because our drivers are that bad. You should vote in new folks that will chance your 9 year old on a 30″ high center of gravity, diesel tank on slick roller coaster roads. Better yet, lets make them walk barefoot uphill both ways one mile there and three miles back, it makes a better story!

Thanks for reading! – Josh @goodtalkjosh