i'm not an amateur: i grew up in Cleveland.

[fox]

Couple inches of dry, non-sticky snow have fallen in the past, oh, three hours.  And it's been cold enough for long enough that it's accumulating.  Which, you know, around here is practically apocalyptic.  (OH MY GOD!  IT'S SNOWING!  WE MUST HURRY OUT -- AT 5MPH -- TO BUY WHITE THINGS*!)  Drove home from datlowen's at about 30 mph, and I admit I fishtailed a little on the on-ramp to 395, but the thing is, I can handle that.  And then, about halfway up my hill, traffic stopped.  I could see flashing lights, but there was a tallish pickup truck in front of me so I couldn't see what was going on.  Once in a while someone came down the hill in the other direction, but the guy in front of me wasn't making any effort to go around whatever was in our lane.  Eventually someone came walking down the hill, and I got his attention and asked what was up -- seems a bus skidded out and got stuck.  (Effort being made to move the bus:  zero.)  And then a few minutes later, the cop came and spoke to the truck in front of me, which then proceeded up the hill.  And then the cop came to speak to me, and we had this conversation:

cop:  You're not going up this hill.
me:  I'm -- is it closed?  I can't go where that truck just went?
cop:  You won't make it.
me:  But I live here.  [points to building we're next to]  I don't need to go, you know, all the way up the hill.  Just to the parking lot.
cop:  People are skidding and spinning trying to go into the garages.
me:  I just need to go, you know, to the driveway right past the bus stop.
cop:  You can't get to the bus stop.
me:  I don't want to -- past it.  Just -- I mean, I understand your concern about the safety --
cop:  Look, you're welcome to try.  But if you hit my police car, I'm going to be very unhappy.

And of course I was fine.  Skids on my way up and into the driveway:  none.

Now my car is parked in a happy facing-a-bit-uphill spot with the wipers standing away from the windshield, and it's even money whether the city will be operating at all tomorrow.


*grocery store shelves tomorrow morning will be bare of bread, milk, and toilet paper.

Comments

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that's a "NO" on the city operating tomorrow. Marc ran out for our Snowstorm 2007!!! dinner essentials and felt like it was getting heavier. The salt truck has already been by here - they seem awfully all over this one little bit of snow we've gotten.

At any rate, I'm working from home tomorrow, so if you go in you'll have the office to yourself. :D

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

Ayiyi. Yeah. I think we've had all of an inch and a half up here and it's like a freakin' ghost town... except for the Safeway parking lot. We went out for a walk with the dog shortly after it started to snow and everyone was acting like it was the wrath of God his own self falling from the sky in the form of hydrochloric acid flakes that burned the skin on contact.

I hate driving around here when there is any snow at all. And it ain't that I don't know how to drive in the snow... it's everyone ELSE. (Except you.)

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

I think the 'you hit my police car' warning is a good one.

But few things are funnier than someone pranging a police car.

8^-

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

When it started to snow yesterday, I joked to my wife that there were probably already abandoned cars lining the beltway.

[impyvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I still can't believe how many idiots out there don't realize that snow is not equivalent to rain, which means -- SLOW THE **** DOWN! I saw people speeding down New Hampshire at 50mph when the snow was starting to fall even more heavily. Saw others braking too fast and fishtailing as a result, and me?

Drove home to Rockville from College Park with no problems whatsoever. I had to pull the car over once, only because ice had formed on the windshield wipers, rendering them useless (ice was "cleaning" the windshield, not the wipers themselves). And the one and only place I even skidded just a tad was in my own neighborhood, which hadn't been treated at all.

Ye gads.