We've survived the winter blizzard. It was actually a little bit fun. I (Trav) wanted some Pepsi and decided to head down to the gas station to get some. Every one on the news said if you don't need to be out and about, just stay home. Well you know if they say that, I'm heading out. I wanted to practice making some donuts. There's an empty parking lot across the road from us that I had to stop at before I came home. It was prefect conditions for whipping around.
I (Tiff) decided to pick up a 3.5 hour shift at a pharmacy 8 miles away on Saturday morning. I didn't think anything of it, what's a little snow. It started snowing Friday night and didn't stop till late Saturday night. In the mean time, I made it to work just fine. I only had 8 miles to go. During my whole shift only 3 people came out to pick up prescriptions. One lady even got stuck in the parking lot because it wasn't plowed. Work was done and I had to make it home. That was the beginning of my adventure. I was able to get through the unplowed parking lot just fine. There were lots of snow drifts about 1.5-3 feet high. It was crazy driving. So many people should not have been on the roads. I just kept a slow and steady pace. None of the roads were really plowed. I just made my own path and stayed away from the high snow banks. I called Trav to let him know that I was on my way home. He suggested that I go on the highway because it should be better than the side streets. Well that wasn't the smartest place to be either. It wasn't plowed and to make matters worse it was near white out conditions. I strained to see about a car-length ahead of me. I was driving about 20-25 miles an hour with a few other cars. Every once in a while some idiot would go flying past us and soon enough we would see that car in the ditch. I just had to laugh because people were being dumb. I seriously saw about 20-25 cars either in the ditch, snow banks or just stopped on the road. I tried to get off the highway at the Normandale exit...no good. A van was in the snow bank with a trooper blocking the exit waiting for a tow. Next up was France Ave exit...there was a jack-knifed semi on the off ramp. I was beginning to get worried that I'd never get off the highway. I saw the sign saying that 35W ramp was closed because of an accident so that was out. I was finally able to get off on Penn Ave only to have the car right in front of me crash into the snow bank and get stuck. The lady driving only had front wheel drive and was stuck good. We finally got the cars behind me to back up after sitting there for about 10-15 minutes not doing anything. I was home free after getting off the highway. It only took me about an hour to get home.
We weren't done driving around for the day either. My girlfriend Lisa was having a birthday party for her son Max. He turned one on Saturday. We braved the un-plowed streets and picked up Mary along the way to get to the party. We had a great time getting there. Once we arrived at their house, Travis & Jacob went back out to pick up another couple we know so they could come to the party too. It was awesome. We brought half of the people to the party. Others tried to come but they weren't able to navigate the roads. While we were at the party, we watched several people get stuck in the road. Some of us were even nice enough to help dig a lady out. One of the guys had a plow on his truck so he went out and tried to clean up some of the road. It worked for a little bit till the city plows came by again and re-stacked up the snow on the side street. We successfully got everyone home and then just relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Grand total for snow fall - 17.5 inches at the airport, but we had around 19 inches by us. A majority of cars in our parking lot are still buried with snow. Pretty wild! I must say this is the most amount of snow we've both seen before Christmas in a long time.
Sunday morning we made it to church. I would be willing to bet there were only 100 people or so. The roads still weren't plowed on the side streets. The biggest thing that happened was that the metrodome collapsed around 5am this morning. There are videos on the internet of the collapse on Fox Sports and You tube. Needless to say we had to drive up to see the dome or shall we say bowl now. It's just so weird not to see the billowing white tarp above the dome.
Overall our weekend was pretty eventful. Word to the wise, if you don't have 4 wheel drive...don't go out in the snow and you won't get stuck and have to be towed.
Until next time, Trav & Tiff
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