Last week the weather forecasters got the forecast completely right. They were forecasting a big time blizzard starting at 3:00 on Tuesday Feb. 1 and right on the nose it started. I of course took the train that day. Since everyone knew the really big snow was going to fall over night, 2 feet of it, most everyone brought work home for Wednesday. The train like expected left 30 minutes early which is 3:50. The roads weren’t too bad yet so we got to the train station on time or early since we left early but the train was delayed for 60 minutes. I had my mifi with me so I surfed the web and caught up on my Words With Friends. It was funny actually, any other 30 minute early shuttle day usually had an earlier shuttle added for those who wanted to get home early. This time they didn’t do it but should of.
When it was all said and done, it took me nearly 2.5 hours to get home that night. RAW was waiting with my car when I finally got off the train, it wouldn’t of been a nice walk home.
All that night, the winds were a howling and got some thunder snow. It was very noisy out there. Two doors down at Andy’s was an ambulance. I felt for anyone like ambulance drivers who had to be out in the weather. RAW found out the next day that Andy was flat on his back on the floor, his back going out while he had his kids there. There were 100s of car stuck on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago for 12 hours and I heard a couple stories like that around here in Antioch and Grayslake. I would of freaked if I was stuck like that.
The next day was a winter wonderland to say the least. Their was a drift that engulfed the front end of my car, with a tidal wave drift in front. The backyard was like a bowl filled with an amazing amount of snow. There was no going anywhere even if you wanted to. They closed all the roads in Lake County and at 8:00 an email from work declaring a snow day! That was unheard of, Abbott never closes for snow. I didn’t know what that really meant. Do I still work or was I given the day off? I was having a light work week and I knew I would have the next day to do the work I brought home. I spent all day wondering but not really working anyway. It was a snow day goll darn it.
RAW walked up to the bar with Andy while waiting to use his snow blower after another neighbor was using it. Hollace and I went out to play in the snow. She kept saying she normally doesn’t like snow but this stuff was cool. I took lots of pictures.
Thursday it was back to work but I took the train. I debated on whether that was a good idea or not. I found a traffic website that had live cameras on all the roads I take and they didn’t look too bad but things were still blowing around. It would of been a no brainer to take the train only now the bitter cold was coming and that usually means long delays for the trains. We don’t have an enclosed shelter at our stop and I didn’t want to have to stand in that sub zero wind chill any longer then I have to. I finally got the bright idea to enlist in RAW’s help. He can get up and drive me to the train station and I can wait in the car until the train came. It was only 5 minutes late, not too bad. Of course coming home it was more like 30 minutes late. RAW picked me up.
This blizzard ranked up to number 3 in biggest snow in Chicago’s history. Number 1 is 1967. Number 2 is 1999 which I can’t remember for some reason. It happened a month before Hollace was born. Why can’t I remember that? One of the reasons I am writing this right now is how I ended up remembering that snow evidential. I found my old journal and read all up about that storm. It happened as we were coming out of the holidays on Jan. 2 so it didn’t impact work so much. I apparently worked at home 2 days though. I still don’t remember much about it. I do remember a couple days later while RAW was using starter fluid to try and start my car that he nearly set it on fire. According to the journal he did but when we took it to the repair guy there was no damage, nothing to fix.
It has been over a week since the blizzard and all that snow is still out there. It is suppose to get above freezing this weekend through most of next week so maybe we will get rid of some.