Snow Day

So as anyone living in Colorado is aware, the Front Range got washed over by a large snowstorm. I awoke this morning to the Good Morning Guys on K99 reporting that a blizzard warning was in effect until 6am on Friday. I wasn't keen on driving down to Longmont to work but I got up and took a look outside anyway.



At six in the morning, it didn't yet look too bad. It was snowing, but in a light sort of way that promised either heavier stuff later or a constant snowfall throughout the day. As I hemmed and hawed, the Guys announced that they had just received an email saying that all radio station personnel were not to report in for work - unless they were DeeJays, in which case they were expected in. :-)

They followed this up with a series of closures. Over the next few minutes, a number of schools starting reporting closure, as well as a few businesses. There was also reports of a couple accidents - one on I-25 and another on US-36. I started to get twitchy about the drive...and finally decided I'd wuss out and call in to say I wasn't going to make it.

I felt really guilty about this decision, especially because Kate was going to go into work. I rationalized it as - 'well, if I worked in town, I'd probably go in, but the 30-40 miles is just too risky.'





I went out to clean off the Sentra for Kate to take in to work and started to feel a little better about the call. I was covered very quickly in snowflakes and the car was being covered up almost as quickly as I could clean it off. I saw Kate off and went back inside to check the conditions online.





I checked my work email first...and discovered that a half dozen of my co-workers had also chickened out. In addition, 9News and the Coloradoan were reporting lots of warnings and problems and a growing list of business and governmental closures. I-25 was closed north of Wellington and the conditions just sounded frightening. At that point, my guilt evaporated and I was just grateful that I wasn't on the road.

As it turned out, the Fort Collins library decided to call it quits around 11:30am. The Longmont library (along with other departments) shut down around 1pm. I was REALLY glad I didn't trudge down to work only to have to come back in the worst part of the storm.

Kate took her time getting home and made it in safely. We took a short nap (yeah for getting some extra sleep!) and played video games for a while. We both did some playing online - where I watched almost every one of my Colorado Facebook chums mention going home due to snow. We tried to slip in some real work too. Kate fixed some CDs and DVDs and tooled with the schedule. I did some research into creating my own online form submission scripts using PHP and played around with some web design ideas.

I cooked up some teriyaki-ginger pork with curry rice for dinner while Kate baked some fresh homemade bread. Now we're finishing up some online work before calling it a night.

Supposedly the snowfall is going to continue on through the night and the news networks are warning that road conditions will probably be sporting on into Friday morning. There's a slim chance that our libraries will stay closed tomorrow, but I rather doubt it.

I always enjoy a snow day. Kate says it's even better than a day off because it was unexpected and you didn't already fill it up with things to do. You can either laze around (like we did mostly) and not be falling behind...or you can do some extra stuff and be ahead of the game. In all, I'm just thankful that I didn't find myself trapped in Longmont overnight - or worse, stuck on the side of the road somewhere in between.



Thanks for reading - and I hope you're having a safe last-bit-of-winter day!

Sun and Snow Day

I do love Colorado. This is one of the few places I've seen that can have a wet snowy evening - and let the sun emerge the next morning. I love the sight of bright sunshine glowing over a blanket of sticky white snow. Best thing in the world.

(I admit that it was a little harrowing driving home in the snowfall last night. It was so sticky that it clung to the car and windows faster than my wipers and defroster could handle it! And that's not including the fog and horizontally blowing snow coming right at my windshield! This morning wasn't too bad - except for a spot between Berthoud and Longmont, where I slid for a ways trying to come to stop at a red light. Fun times...)

Here's some pix I took of the wintery landscape...

These are from the morning around our house:






These are outside the Longmont library after I'd arrived:




And these are more toward the middle of the day (also around the library) after the sun had worked its way out:




It's been a fairly mild winter - some of the midwinter days have been practically balmy! Of course, there's still enough time left in the winter for a big snowstorm so I'm not counting winter down yet. :-)

Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a great day!