Amusement From Above

Let me begin with – I love this snow. I am so glad that we’ll get a ‘white Christmas’ this year. Although, it took me over 7 hrs to get home on Weds (I only work 8miles from my house), I still love this snow.

My Wednesday adventure began with me leaving work at 1:15pm. I work right off 287, so after 30 minutes of waiting, I finally nudge myself onto 287, heading south. Big mistake. It took me over two hours to go the ½ mile to the lights at Dillon Road. At which point, I was quickly running out of gas. I knew at this pace I wouldn’t make it up to Miramonte to the King Soopers gas station. I turn around and go back to work. A co-worker was somewhat behind me on S. 287 and ended up turning around heading back to work. In the office we all go over our options for getting home. My co-worker lives in Aurora and didn’t think he’d make it home. He ended up coming with me and we ventured out to get gas. Yes, silly on my part for not planning ahead. But, it’s not my fault. I feel the weather news cries wolf so often that it was hard to believe them when they said we’d get snow. It started with 2-3” and quickly turned into a blizzard.

Not my fault, right?

The first gas station – out of gas. Can you believe this?!?! Get to the second and phew, gas. Run into another co-worker who lives in Fort Collins and was turned back by CDOT. He said he was going to sleep in his car. Hummm .. we tried to persuade him to go back to the office, at least. I don’t see him here at work today, so I hope he is ok.

Fill up and we’re off. We end up taking S. Boulder Road east to N. 120th to Dillon. Then onto Sheridan. Get home in just under 2 hrs. The back driveway, which services the 4 sections of townhouses, has conveniently NOT BEEN BLOODY PLOWED. Manage to maneuver my car into a makeshift parking place on the street. We trudge through waist high snow to get to my garage. Thank good I am now home! But it’s 7pm by this point.

The next morning, I know it will be fairly difficult to get my car out. We do not own a shovel. Silly right? But we live in a Townhouse and the HOA is meant to clear the roads, driveways and sidewalks if there is more than 4’ of snow accumulation. So, we never bought a shovel. By now, I am wishing we had. The snow drifts just outside our garage are a good 4-5’.

The next morning, another co-worker, with a BIG JEEP, comes to collect my other co-worker who stayed the night with J and me. I stayed home. I borrowed a shovel. By 4pm, all us neighbours figured the damn HOA was not going to get the plows out. I’m sorry, but what do we pay our HOA fees for??? We all say that if they cannot plow, then we cannot pay our fees for the month. Darn. My neighbours are really pissed off – I mean to the point where they are leaving these nasty messages to the HOA. Of course, the HOA office is closed.

We all pitch in and clear a path for our cars to get through. It took a lot of manpower and hours to do this. My legs, back, arms and hands are KILLING ME. I managed to dig out my car and J gets it into the garage. We were a bit worried about leaving it on the street, as we had hoped the plows would come through.

Around 8pm, I see the neighbour at the first townhouse, at the entry of the driveway, is stuck. His car is COMPLETELY BLOCKING THE PATH WE ALL JUST MADE TO GET OUT. Goddamn. I figure that he’ll be able to get out eventually, so we go back to watch a movie. Now, it’s 11pm. The car is still there and HAS NOT MOVED.

I bitch to J about this !@#$% who is stuck and now blocking the path. J gets all suited up and goes out to help. He is back in about 20 mins. I am thinking “Ugh, it’s that bad that J gave up already!’.

Hope. J managed to get the car out in 20 mins when this asswipe took 4 hrs. J said that this had to be the DUMBEST man and his college age son, ever.

He said that they had not even attempted to dig the car tires out and just kept revving the engine in hopes the car would move. Apparently, it just STANK of burned rubber. J got down, dug out the tires, cleared a path for the tires to go and then used these nifty little spikey plate things under the back tires. The car comes right out. J said that even *I* would know better and at least attempt to DIG the car out and not just rev the engine for 4hrs.

The plows finally come to our drive around 5am and finish at 7:30am. It took that long to clear our drive. Thankfully, it’s now cleared. I made it to work and had no problems driving. I have to give thanks to my car too. This is the first BIG snow storm I’ve had with my Nissan Murano. I had no problems with the snowy roads, Wednesday and none this morning. Stick that baby in all wheel drive, got the VDC on and off I went.

Pumpkin LOVES this snow. We had fun throwing her in the snow drifts and he ‘swimming’ out. She liked it too – no worries :)