Looking out Mom's kitchen window one week ago today.
Oh - these 7' high piles? My 81 year old mother hand-shoveled all of that. She has a guy she pays to shovel down in front of the garage (the real heavy stuff the plow leaves behind) but she won't let him do her backyard because she says "I need my exercise."
Here's a shot from upstairs looking out over the road. The garage roof was shoveled off 10 days prior to this photo. I tried to get her to let me send the boys out there to clean it off but she was worried about them falling off. (Never worried about ME falling off when I was 15... Hmmmm)
This was the parking lot of the Houghton Mcdonalds. We were stopping for breakfast at 5:45 a.m. Eastern time Sunday Morning on our way home. The storm had just barely started at this point:
The trip home (normally 5-1/2 - 6 hours but took 8) was a blast.
We started out with one "sorta" plowed lane (ours) and a two-track on the opposite side. It was dark, and snowing like all get-out.
As day dawned and we turned on to 141 south of Covington Junction, we encountered a 10 miles stretch of un-plowed road with about 12-18" of fresh snow on it. On the plus side, the snow let up a bit.
I had to run at about 30 mph along here. Any faster and things got too squirrely, any slower and you could feel her bogging down. Momentum is the key.
At one point the 11-year old woke up and looked out from his position in the 3rd row seat. He immediately yelled "DAD!! What the heck are you DOING?!?!?" I said "What do you mean?" He said "Why are we driving through the middle of a field?!?!?!?!"
"It's not a field buddy. It's just another winter day in the U.P." (Truth be told, I used to drive on this type of stuff in a 4-cyl 1989 Mustang all the time. Snow-tires and a manual transmission made it just barely possible. A 4x4 Expedition makes it child's play.)
I-43 south of Green Bay treated us to a 60+ mph cross-wind. If we were in an area with some buildings or trees, then we had clear visibility and slightly wet roads. In the sections between such obstructions, we had anywhere from 1/4" to an inch of blown snow on the road and near white-out conditions.
At least I wasn't on 41 Southbound over near Appleton. They had a 130 car pileup. 70 people went to the hospital. One was killed. They brought in coach busses to get people to someplace safe while they sorted out the wrecks.
Here's the ice packed into my radiator when we got home:
The funny thing about all this was that I never felt unsure of my vehicle or being able to get where I was going. That early-morning stretch through the U.P. on barely-plowed roads was EASY compared to what waited for me the further south we got. What had me scared was the way OTHER people were driving.
The storm dumped a TON of snow on my Mom. Look at that picture of her yard again and then imagine the paths half as wide. That's what she's got now. (Mom still runs a flip phone so no pictures to exchange....)
There were actually people that had to climb out of there second-story windows to shovel out their front doors on Monday morning. That's an exceptional amount of snow at once - even for the U.P.
The good news is that they had sunny days on Monday and Tuesday (not warm, just sunny) so they were able to get enough roads open that they could re-open the schools by Wednesday. Mom's hoping they'll pick up garbage today or tomorrow.
