Snowed in

Looking out the front window toward the street

Some people live in areas where snow is a common occurrence in the winter, I do not. Our climate is mild with rain and clouds. It rarely gets cold enough to snow and when it does everything comes to a standstill. The schools close, the buses change routes and sometimes don’t run at all or get stuck, cars slide and skid and crash. People stay inside if they can and wait for the Pineapple express (warm wet wind and rain coming from Hawaii across the Pacific Ocean) to melt all the mess and let us get back to normal.

Seattle is a city of many hills, steep hills; it is not equipped to deal with snow. This city has perhaps only 20 trucks to sand, salt and plow the streets. None of the residential streets are touched by a plow only the main roads. My mailbox is down on the street and I have 20 stairs to climb up and down to get to the driveway. The driveway is very steep so I use a hiking pole to help me get down in the snow. But guess what? No mail, no paper, nobody wants to drive on my quiet little road bracketed by two extremely steep streets. The street to the north of me is so steep that it is always closed when it snows the street on the south is a main bus route and is salted or sanded but probably not plowed. Even so the buses go a different way when it snows.

The snow is very beautiful. It is 28℉ and still snowing. Cat and I will stay snug and warm inside the house.

The stairs up to the house

The street looking north

The house from the driveway

The Bride of Satan looking out at the snow

Note: Some of these photos are from a previous winter, I'm not going outside today.