I Really Hate Winter.

So on Sunday after it had been beautiful all week with no snow on the roads and everything feeling almost spring-like, it began snowing heavily and we ended up with 8 inches of heavy packing snow all about. The snow stopped falling that night.

On Monday the only saving grace was that it was President's Day so lots of people, unlike myself, had the day off. I spent quite some time in the morning shovelling off the driveway and had quite a workout so I could get out and get to work. I layed down at least 20 pounds of salt and declared the driveway as passable as it was going to get.

My driveway was the only cleanish bit of roadway around where asphalt was visible. The snow was not yet off the roads. In our subdivision, where the government plough dare not roam (The sub is required to pay for its own snow removal and everyone pays for that) the road still had a layer of snow but it was plowed, packed down and slippy but pasable.

Once out of the sub onto the public road, my Jeep almost bottomed out as nothing had been plowed. That road travels through multiple jurisdictions so you could tell who had the competent snow removal service going. I think the road by us is the county's responsibilty so it was understandably low on the list, hence the tire tracks in between the great mounds of snow.

Crossing a major street after a mile or so, the road suddenly showed signs of plowage, with only a few inches on the road of slippery stuff but no fear of bottoming out or getting pulled around by the mounds of snow. After 4 more miles and crossing yet a major street the street became clean enought to eat off of - asphalt visible with not a drop of snow, beautiful.

Of course, that night heading home the road near my house was still in the same shape and had yet to be plowed, nor had it been touched by the Tuesday morning drive to work. Finally by the Tuesday evening rush hour it was plowed. I put a bit more salt on the driveway as it was becoming slippery again.

Yesterday I came home at night after work and went to get the mail.

Dark night, dark driveway, new formation of black ice.

You can see where this is going. So did my feet.

Both feet hit the ice and both went right up in the air. OUCH.

Good thing I knew how to breakfall or it could have been nasty. More salt was then thrown on the driveway after the ice had already been melted by some coarse language.

I REALLY HATE WINTER.