The Weekend Threesome returns from a brief layoff and is dominated by the Great Snowstorm of 2/2/22! Which wasn’t really that bad, but never let the truth stand in the way of a great story!
Forty years ago last weekend, St. Louis was hit by the infamous Blizzard of ’82, which dumped over a foot of snow on the area and came by complete surprise. Forecasters have long since learned their lesson to never pussyfoot around with impending snowstorms… better to predict too much than too little. Still, it’s rare the word “foot” ever appears in a snow forecast around here… but it was used a lot this week.
My unofficial measurement Thursday afternoon was about five inches… though as I found out Friday, there were snowdrifts well over a foot in some parts of my yard. I was able to make a doctor appointment and get lunch on Wednesday morning, when Phase One (rain turning to wintry crap) was still going on. It was about 20 degrees… well below freezing, yet what was falling was rain/sleet that was freezing to my windshield as I was driving! That must’ve been one heck of an inversion (temperature increase with altitude, rather than the expected decrease) to cause that!
Phase Two was steady snowfall from Wednesday evening though most of the day on Thursday…
It did look pretty outside…
A neighborhood hooligan and her dog enjoying the snow day.
This storm had the “fortune” of hitting early in my days off work this week, so I didn’t have to worry about missing because my crappy car couldn’t get out of the driveway…. at least until Saturday night. With what was forecast and knowing temps would stay below freezing for a while, I warned my manager I might literally get stuck here all of next week! And while the snow wasn’t that bad, the plow job done on my street sometime after I went to bed Thursday evening (Definitely NOT the city) made things much hairier for me…
Mt. Snowpile in front of my house…. AND driveway!
Whoever did this missed the fact that my driveway is supposed to exit onto the street about where that small peak is on the right side of the mountain. I took my spade (Which was probably better for removing large chunks of snowy ice than a snow shovel anyway) and cleared the area out Friday, while doing my best to remove what snow I could from the actual driveway. Then I backed my car out to test things about and managed to completely miss the path I’d cleared and got stuck in that mini mound on the far right of the photo. And an uphill climb on snow from a standstill in my car is just not gonna happen…
The neighbor who lives to my right, who I haven’t spoken to once in the entire seven years she’s been there, came to my rescue. Since the only way for me to get unstuck was to continue backing up, we teamed up to remove the rest of that pile so I could get out into the street, and after three attempts, I was finally able to get back up the hill and into the garage. She then took her pickup truck (this is a country gal) and ran it up my driveway a few times to flatten out a better path for me. A big thank you to her, or else my car might still be sitting out there…
Oh how I miss my Neon that never had any issues in snow…
As a kid, one of my favorite things to do when it snowed was grab a bowl and scoop me up some nice virgin snow to eat! And yes, I’m still a kid at heart…
Warn me if you see any yellow, Mr. Fox.
God only knows what pollutants and other crap it may have encountered on its way down from the heavens, but I don’t care. I got me a spoon and dug right in!
Yep, that’s The Monkees show I’m watching on YouTube. I found a playlist with all 58 episodes last week and have polished off all of the second (and best) season already. The plots in the last half of that season were totally off the wall, I love the more psychedelic look the boys had, and the music featured in those shows have some of my absolute favorites from the band like “Star Collector,” “Goin’ Down,” “Words,” “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round?” and “Daydream Believer“…
Cheer up sleepy Jean!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
Snow, snow, everywhere snow! The weather there and here is just the same.
I think you have more snow than we have, plus ours will melt this week when it gets warmer. But it was nice to have a little winter…
We used to have snow with maple syrup for dessert when I was a kid!
So many ways to enjoy snow as a delicacy!
I remember my brother and I being quite excited to eat snow when we were kids…..I seem to recall my Mom wasn’t overly thrilled about it but we did it and she let us so there. THEN I remember snowcones – oh yes….with flavored stuff dumped on it – oh yes again. I haven’t indulged in snow eating in probably 60+ years but hey – there’s no time like the present. Now I have a reason to WANT snow…..! You sure did get a lot – and how NICE to know you do have a neighbor who is helpful if you need help……..really.
Pam
I had to give up sno cones last year because my icemaker went out, and the trays make the cubes too big for my machine. I still have six bottles of cherry syrup, though… maybe I should have tried an all natural snow cone!
Are you sure you weren’t enjoying the Monkees so much because you had just eaten contaminated snow? (Just kidding, I watched the Monkees as a kid.)
Contaminated snow is what gives me all these wonderful ideas for my blog…
Snow, what’s that?????
Snow is pretty. But I don’t like the cold. We got 2 inches here, but it melted off pretty fast. However it was so cold our kitchen cold water pipe froze up. Took awhile for that to thaw out.
Glad you had the nice neighbor to help get out of the snow pile! 🙂
I remember the pipes used to freeze up at my Granny’s house, and my Dad would have to take a blowtorch to them. She had a big kerosene stove that was scalding hot to the touch…. but it got pretty cold the farther away from it you got!
We never used a blowtorch but have used a hairdryer. I don’t think it did much good. Next time we need to remember to keep the faucet dribbling over night and the cabinet doors open. Thanks for sharing your memory of those days. 🙂
Now you’ve experienced life from the snow side. Welcome to the club. We have t-shirts and hot cocoa….
Doesn’t look like it’ll last with our 40’s and 50’s for this coming week…. but I’m sure Mt. Snowpile will be in my front yard for quite a while yet….
Watching old Monkees’ episodes definitely beats shoveling. I’d like to think whomever plowed was trying to do a good thing, but man…how dumb can some people be? Had the same thing happen after plowing out the driveway in the alley that goes to my garage on an incline. A ‘kind’ neighbor plowed the alley and all the snow I spent 3 hours shoveling ended up blocking my driveway again. Grrrrrrr