Living in Alaska: Blizzard 2011

Sunday's drive to Salcha was, at times, treacherous.

Oh, my! Have we had some serious snow in the last 24 hours! It started snowing yesterday (Sunday) around 10:00 a.m. and did not stop until sometime this afternoon (Monday). In all we had almost 16 inches.

Yesterday, to have some adventure in our lives, Mike and I drove down to Salcha to the Knotty Shop to make a candle delivery. The visibility was so bad that we could often only see a 1/4 mile. To further torture ourselves, we then drove to Fairbanks to do shopping at Sam's Club.

After arriving safely home, we put away our groceries and watched Toy Story 3. Prior to going to bed, we had 2.9 inches of snow. Oblivious to the brewing blizzard, we went to bed and enjoyed a good night's sleep.

Waking at 5:30 a.m., Mike got up and prepared the coffee. He turned on the light in the backyard and yelled, "Oh my goodness!!!"

"What's wrong?" I sleepily replied.

"It snowed!" Mike said.

"Of course, it snowed. It was snowing when we went to bed." I retorted.

"No! I mean it REALLY snowed!" Mike yelled.

Upon this quick exchange of words, Mike went outside and measured 14 inches of snow. He then pulled out the snow blower and blew the snow off the drive. Finishing, just in time for me to go to school, he came in covered in snow from head to toe!

I could have only wished that the borough had been as ambitious as Mike. They had not even been out to plow. Imagine driving in 14 inches of snow. I made it to school just on time for parent-teacher conferences. Fortunately, 90% of the parents decided that they could not come at their scheduled time because the snow was too deep. So, they cancelled. Smart people!!!

Okay, conferences are beside the point of this post. What is the point? Man, did we get a mess of snow!