Winter Wonderland
Jan. 5th, 2005 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kublakhanOne of my co-workers heard that one of the local weather newscasters is saying this is the most snow Iowa has gotten in a 24 hour period in 50 years. Estimated 8 to 12 inches of snow state wide by tomorrow morning with lots of blowing and drifting. Yet somehow, I'm disappointed.
I grew up in Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak. Winter snowfall was a regular occurance and 8 inches of snow was, most years, fairly common. I can't count the number of times I'd look out the window into the 3-4 foot piles of snow blocking our driveway and begrudging the fact that school was still open. It was rumored that the only time school would be closed is if the district superintendant couldn't make in into the office and he had a 4x4.
I remember my mother driving white-knuckled from Denver back to the Springs not because the roads were slick but because the snowfall was so heavy it was obscuring her vision (you literally could not see past the windshield). I remember walking out into the backyard and wondering where all the fences had gone because everything under 5 feet high had been covered in snow. I remember digging snow caves with the ceilings so high that I could stand up
But the one winter snow storm memory that stand out the most is listening to the radio one afternoon hearing the Colorado Springs police warning motorists that any driver caught out on the roads without both a four-wheel-drive vehicle and chains would be arrested and their vehicle impounded. A vehicle with anything less was, because of the intesity ofhte snowfall, a road hazzard. I ran to the window and looked out to a 7 foot drift and the flashing light of a snow plow trying quite in vain to keep the roads clear. I heard that that same truck (or another similar plow truck) later got stuck in a drift of it's own making down the block. The next morning, the snowfall had stopped but no one was going anywhere. Some people had to dig themselves out of their houses because all the exterior doors had been drifted in.
And, for once, school was cancelled.
I grew up in Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak. Winter snowfall was a regular occurance and 8 inches of snow was, most years, fairly common. I can't count the number of times I'd look out the window into the 3-4 foot piles of snow blocking our driveway and begrudging the fact that school was still open. It was rumored that the only time school would be closed is if the district superintendant couldn't make in into the office and he had a 4x4.
I remember my mother driving white-knuckled from Denver back to the Springs not because the roads were slick but because the snowfall was so heavy it was obscuring her vision (you literally could not see past the windshield). I remember walking out into the backyard and wondering where all the fences had gone because everything under 5 feet high had been covered in snow. I remember digging snow caves with the ceilings so high that I could stand up
But the one winter snow storm memory that stand out the most is listening to the radio one afternoon hearing the Colorado Springs police warning motorists that any driver caught out on the roads without both a four-wheel-drive vehicle and chains would be arrested and their vehicle impounded. A vehicle with anything less was, because of the intesity ofhte snowfall, a road hazzard. I ran to the window and looked out to a 7 foot drift and the flashing light of a snow plow trying quite in vain to keep the roads clear. I heard that that same truck (or another similar plow truck) later got stuck in a drift of it's own making down the block. The next morning, the snowfall had stopped but no one was going anywhere. Some people had to dig themselves out of their houses because all the exterior doors had been drifted in.
And, for once, school was cancelled.
