With snow comes an adventure

What to blog about today?  I have to admit, it’s one of those days when I could get a lot done, or very little depending on my attention span.  We got snow last night, as many in the Pacific Northwest did, and it’s the kind of snow I like…flakey, fluffy and fun.  There’s a lot of snow but it’s not so heavy to cause branches or trees to take out the power and the brightness in our house from the reflection off the snow never fails to energize me.  

But the snow can also be very distracting.  It’s bright and beautiful and clean.  The sounds outside are muffled or almost completely silent except for the noise heard when snow falls off the trees onto the ground.  I love to go out and take photos and while I did take the opportunity, I wasn’t able to head to my computer afterwards to write.  Instead, we began to worry about the hill we live on and whether our boys would be able to get up the hill to get home. 

So we decided to venture out, tackle the hill ourselves and take a risk on whether we’d be able to get back home.  If we could get back up the hill, then our boys could too.  We had a truck with 4-wheel drive until early last year and while I’ve missed it for various reasons since we got rid of it, today I missed it for the obvious reason…not worrying about getting stuck in the snow. 

We were able to get down our long driveway okay, after getting stuck once only because I asked my husband to stop so I could get a shot of the valley.  Oops…my bad.  But he was able to put the car into reverse and get us unstuck easily enough.

Then we made it to the county road and immediately we knew the county had not yet bothered to plow or sand.  I felt some optimism though because the snow is fluffy and the car took to the road just fine.  But then we got to the top of the hill and looking down, I would have preferred to turn around and head straight back home.  I remember when I was kid that sometimes the road would get so bad we’d have to park at the bottom and walk home.  It’s quite the walk, especially in the snow when you’re cold and having to carry whatever you don’t want to leave in your car.  My preference would have been to wait a few more hours and just tell the boys not to bother coming home yet; but my husband had other ideas.

We slowly made our way down the hill, driving down the center as I crossed my fingers that no one would bother coming up the hill as we headed down.  I had to laugh when one of the neighborhood boys (probably in his early 20’s) drove up the hill riding a very small motorcycle that looked like it was built for someone under ten years old.  He flew right past us and the motorcycle, with its very small tires, seemed to have no problem getting traction up the hill.  I think that little motorcycle gave my husband the idea that if it could make it up the hill, so could we.

It was not a good assumption.

We made it down the hill, only to discover there were already four vehicles parked at the bottom because they weren’t able to make it up.  One of the neighbors came down in his jeep and was actually trying to put chains on his wife’s car so she could get home.  We told him we were going to turn around to try our way back up the hill and he said to honk twice if (I think he was thinking ‘when’) we got stuck and he’d bring his jeep up to help us. 

With fingers crossed yet again, we began the slow climb up the hill and all seemed to be going well until we got about half way up.  The car slowed down, even with the accelerator pressed down hard, and we lost traction and the tires began to spin, moving the car towards the ditch on my side.  It doesn’t take much for me to sputter back-seat driving instructions (it’s a bad habit, I know), but when I felt the car began to move towards the ditch, my mind was spinning as fast as the tires.  My husband is much calmer in this sort of circumstance and he was easily able to manage the car so that we didn’t get stuck in the ditch.  Once we stopped sliding, he put the car in reverse and we moved backwards down the hill back to the bottom.

Oh what fun that was.

We ended up borrowing a vehicle with 4-wheel drive from a family member and with our car and our oldest son’s car parked at our family’s house for the time being, we all headed home.  We’re going to wait it out and try again in a few more hours. 

In the meantime, I’m going to try my best to get some writing done beyond this blog.  I hope you’re enjoying your Sunday and if you’re like most and have snow to deal with, I hope you’re enjoying it from the safety of your own home.