More snow than the city knows what to do with! By 4:30pm yesterday, only the main roads had been plowed. How are we supposed to get to the main roads if the secondary roads haven't been plowed? Chalk it up to good ol' City of Spearfish to get that figured out.
Aaron and I were invited to his parent's house last night as it was his father's birthday. We had a great meal of filet mignon, veggies, shrimp, and strawberry cake. Mmm mmm good. We had decided to walk to his parent's house, as they only lived a couple of blocks away and the parking lot to the apartment hadn't been plowed yet. This also gave us an idea of what the roads were like elsewhere in town, which weren't very good. The sideroads had been driven through, but not actually plowed. And from the looks of it, only trucks had driven through those roads, as the snow between the ruts was still rather high.
Having no food in the apartment, Aaron and I decided it was time to wander out of the apartment, for fear cabin fever would set in. Aaron was already getting antsy and needed to get out of the house. We decided the best plan of action was to go to Wal*Mart to get us some groceries. Our land lord had been plowing the parking lot, and it looked like enough people had driven through the secondary road we lived on that we could probably make it to the bottom of the hill and out onto the main road.
Boy, were we wrong. Piled up directly behind us was a ton of the snow that had been in the parking lot, packed pretty hard. I guess I was supposed to be giving Aaron signals or directions, or something, so that he wouldn't back into the snow pile. I figured it was pretty easy to not back into the snow pile, so I didn't really do anything, and he slid right into it...even though the wheels were cranked to the other side. After much struggling, tire spinning, and chipping snow out from under the tires with the ice scraper, we were free at last!
The main roads were pretty good. Fortunately, the snow was very wet and slushy, so it was already melting during the warm, 40* day. With the forecast for rain and 60* the next day, this could get scary. The only really bad part about going to Wal*Mart was trying to make it across the bridge over the Interstate. There was the biggest plow I had ever seen in my life...with a plow on the front taller than me, and an additional plow on each side. What was it doing? Getting off the bridge, and onto the Interstate, which was still closed at that time. Did he plow any of the bridge he was on? Nooooo. That would make sense. Kill two birds with one stone. Who would want to do that around here?
We had the most fun (see: terrifying) ride across the bridge! There were huge bumps all over the place, and it had hardly been plowed...it had probably been plowed near the beginning of the day and hadn't been touched all the rest of the day, when we got another 5-6" or so. Somehow we managed not to careen off the bridge or into any other vehicles that were crossing the bridge, and we made it to Wal*Mart. I was almost expecting a repeat of my last Wal*Mart experience in the snow, but fortunately, that didn't happen.
However, the wonderful crew at the 24-hour a day Wal*Mart had neglected to plow the parking lot. The entire parking lot was covered in two feet of snow, with some vehicles hopelessly buried in from having to work all day there. Instead of trying to park in the lot, the 10 or so vehicles that were there just decided it was easier to parallel park alongside the front of the building where the snow had been cleared. Talk about curbside service!
After Wal*Mart we headed back into town to pick up some wine for Aaron's dad. He had a hankerin' for it and they were stuck stuck stuck in their driveway from the snow, with no means of escape. So we stopped by Safeway for him and picked up some wine, and drove by Aaron's parent's to drop it off. We had heard the school was opening at 10am the next day, and couldn't imagine that was possible with the amount of snow that had fallen, but there was someone plowing the parking lot (and they didn't do a very good job, lemme tell you that, from the way I had to park this morning).
Because we drove by the school to look at the parking lot progress, we took an alternate route to get to the apartment. Unfortunately, the way the snow had been plowed (and because some dude was standing in the middle of the street we needed to turn onto), we had to turn around and come at the street from the other direction. We decided maybe it would be easier to just take an alternate route all together, instead of turning around, and saw a truck pulling out of a street onto the main street we were on. Okay, here we go!
We made it one block into the street, with snow scraping the bottom of the car. Nice and clean, now! And about a quarter of the way up the second block, up a slight hill, we got stuck. Hmmm. This was not good. But since we made it UP that far, it would be pretty easy to make it DOWN that far onto the main road again (and turn around, like we had originally planned).
Since all this has happened, the snow has been melting at an alarming rate. We haven't had the rain they predicted from yesterday, but it will be 70* tomorrow and Saturday, so I can only imagine the fun we're going to have sloshing around through everything. I guess Deadwood got more snow than we did, and Lead got 59 inches. Yikes. Can't imagine having to clean up all that on the streets!
And there is my long-winded story about our trip to Wal*Mart and almost dying a couple of times. Mom says I tell long stories, like a southerner. Must get it from her.
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