Snow Storm Frustrations

I love the snow. It's in my genes, what can I say? And with the appropriate infrastructure, it shouldn't be a big deal.

I stress shouldn't.

Oklahoma set a new record on Christmas Eve for the most snowfall in one day. We got around our house about 8 inches, but with wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph we definitely have some drifts that are about 2 to 3 feet deep. Christmas Eve night, my brothers and I went about digging out half of our driveway. We now have a pile of snow about 3 feet deep on one side. It was fabulous because I had my very first real White Christmas in Oklahoma ever. Pretty awesome, I'd say.

Now for the reference to the post title, as well as to this post.

My parents and I drove around town today, obtaining some food and non-food necessities of life. It was astounding to me that the so-called Emergency Snow Routes were barely plowed, and were mostly just run down by tire tracks. Even more infuriating, we passed not one, not two, but THREE snowplows and only ONE of them had it's blade down and was actively plowing. The ridiculousness of this astounds me. I am even more angry when I think that we (as in taxpayers) are paying these guys to drive around and NOT plow. Once again, it's infuriating.

To top it all off, the drivers here don't know what to do when the roads are slick. It's pretty much a road-rage inducing activity.

In related news, my dad and I were driving down one road in particular. There was a pick-up in front of us and my dad said something to the effect that they were a couple of crazy cowboys who were going to get into trouble. I kid you not, within 5 seconds they ram into the snow bank on the side of the road. We drove around them, laughing at the irony, and made our way to our destination.

Also, this is my public thank you to my brother Nate Dogg for going out of town and thereby making available to us his XTerra equipped with four wheel drive. It really helps when you're cutting across snow filled parking lots in an attempt to avoid traffic.