Wednesday, November 29, 2006

We were told this would happen

We had a very nice weekend in Vancouver with Sugar Daddy's aunt & uncle. Doodle Bug was in a crappy mood for most of the time & ate less than 1 jar of baby food the entire time, along with about 15 Cheerios, 1 small piece of potato, 2 french fries (yes you read that right - bad, bad parents), half a cherry tomato & 2 bites of a muffin. Probably 1 days worth of food in 4 days. Of course as soon as she got home she made up for it all by eating 2 jars of food & giggling happily when she saw her toys. Ahhhh the comforts of home.

The weekend was spent hanging out, doing a bit of shopping(where I fell in love with a white leather coat & white leather boots but then realized that was $1000 worth of love with taxes & frankly I don't think I qualify for that much love), eating (pumpkin pie from the awesome Jody!), meeting up with friends (& their sweet new baby) we haven't seen in about 8 years & taking a gander at the the cool 40 foot sailboat belonging to our gracious hosts. Wow! Too bad it was a bit too cold for a jaunt in the bay. Cold? In Vancouver? Uh huh. It rained of course while we were there but then the snow began on Saturday afternoon. Of course being the bad parents that we are, neither of us had really checked the forecast before we left Seattle & so didn't even think to bring a coat or hat or mitts for our precious child. Oh we suck. At least we had a warm blanket to protect her from the scary white stuff that was falling from the sky.

Scary white stuff we thought we left behind in Ottawa. Hmmm... Turns out we brought it with us. Yes denizens of the Northwest, blame it on us. First we brought a month of no rain & then to mess with your heads we stuck you with this. Bwah ha ha!

So we woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday & it kept on coming down as we packed up our belongings for the car ride home. We met our friends for lunch & hung out until about 4 just catching up & letting Doodles chase their cats. (oh the squeals of delight issuing forth!) Finally we got on the road for what should've been a 3 - 4 hour journey, depending on the border crossing line up & how many times we had to stop to nurse. The Canadian part of the drive was easy going despite the snow & traffic was pretty light. Then, once we got about 5 km from the border everything came to a standstill. It's usually a wait at this crossing but we hadn't seen the line back up this far back before so we figured maybe they were being extra vigilant for Thanksgiving weekend or some other strange reason we weren't privy too. Somehow we managed to bypass a bit of the line & finally made it through in about 40 minutes. We thought it would be clear sailing the rest of the way back but we were to be thwarted over & over again as we experienced the conundrum of unexperienced winter drivers.

What was a typical Ontario winter's drive in snowy conditions became a painful ordeal of standstill traffic & Sugar Daddy saying over & over "What is wrong with these people?! I am the best driver on this road! Doesn't anyone know how to drive?". Apparently not in these conditions. The amount of fancy SUVs & 4 wheel drives that were driving 20 km/hr on the Interstate was enough to boggle our used to 3 foot snowdrift minds. It was a bit icy in patches but nothing too crazy to warrant the number of vehicles off the road & the snail's pace at which we were going. The only vehicles that seemed to be able to handle it were the big wheel pickup trucks & 10 year old SUVs driven my mustachioed dudes. It was a bit surreal & really frustrating when we calculated that at the rate we were going we wouldn't get home until 2 am. Ugh.


We managed to somehow do a bit of passing & hit a few miles of decent driving speed every once in a while so we figured that we cut our estimated arrival time down to 10 pm. Better than 2 but still way past what it should have been. Traffic cleared up a little once we went past Bellingham but we still got to laugh derisively at the vehicles going in the opposite direction who were stuck behind a row of snowplows. Everything was stopped for miles behind them. (They may have been stopped for an accident we didn't see but I'm going with snowplows because we saw rows & rows of them going North but only 1 going our way so I'm jealous ok?)

Anyway, we finally made it home around 9:30 safe & sound, thinking everything was back to normal. Turns out nope. Monday afternoon it started to snow over top of the bit of ice that was left on the roads. Then all hell broke loose. Sugar Daddy was stuck in the underground parking garage at work because no one knew how to drive their vehicles on snowy pavement. After waiting for 40 minutes he gave up & went back to his desk for a couple more hours. The eventual drive home took another 40 minutes. It usually takes 8. I got to listen to more scoffing when he finally made it here & we tuned into the news to hear all about the crrrrrazzzzy weather.

The next morning it looked like this:


What is that? Maybe an inch of snow? Two tops. Get this my eastern friends - the city was shut down. Work was cancelled, schools were closed, roads blocked off. We couldn't get over it. I went for a walk with Doodle Bug later in the afternoon so we could go to Gymboree but it, along with 80% of the shops in the town center were closed "due to inclement weather". The local roads & sidewalks were a bit icy. The temperature was a slightly chilly 1 degree Celcius. Back East this is nothing. Here it is something to talk about. Here, this is serious & we shouldn't be laughing at it (that means you jackass). There really is a lot of ice & the hills (of which there are a ton around here) are treacherous. This is the second snow day they've had in about 10 years so no one is quite prepared for the conditions & how to handle them. There's more snow & freezing rain & cold to come in the next few days so who knows what's going to shut down next.

Us? We'll try & keep the smirks off our faces. At least until next year when we start freaking out because the sky started tossing scary white stuff at us again.

9 comments:

Jenn said...

LOL you guys are like lookin around thinkin to yourselves, What's WRONG with you people....it's like an inch and a half od snow! Sheesh!!

bunmaster said...

I know! I feel bad for laughing because they just aren't used to it but I can't stop giggling. Bad bad me!

Gabriella said...

And here in Brampton it's been raining steadily for 2 days with not too bad temps! No snow in sight! Although now maybe I just jinxed it!

Anonymous said...

Too bad you couldn't just beam yourselves home eh? We have finally said goodbye to our -35 (with the windchill) weather we've had for a week. Tomorrow Brynn gets to go skating out at Jasper Park Lodge with Santa. Tuesday we hop aboard the Santa Claus Express Train for and hour and a half. Woohoo. Hope your snow melts soon.

Anonymous said...

We have way more snow here in Kimberley than we usually have at this time of the year. It just keeps coming. Yay, I'm going x-country skiing tomorrow! First time this season, can't wait. Must be frustrating, dealing with those drivers Lala. Funny when you think about it after though.

nonlineargirl said...

The snow thing is a nightmare here in Portland. People freak out at the mention of a dusting. Cars are abandoned in the street, shops close, etc. Luckily I had nowhere I needed to be when it snowed last week, or I'd have had a similar experience of slow traffic and terrible, freaked out drivers.

Jezer said...

That's EXACTLY the way we shut down the town when we get any kind of white and/or frozen stuff falling from the sky!!! Course, around here, that only happens every 6 years or so, so we all act like fools--"It's snowing! It's snowing!" and storm the grocery stores and drive 20mph. We're wimps like that.

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