Snow Days

IT'S SNOWING!!!!! There is snow outside my home!!! A whopping 4 inches! Now, for many people this will not seem like an eventful thing! When my folks in Colorado, still recovering from getting 3 and a half feet of Christmas snow, hear that we got 4 inches they roll their eyes. But to us, here in Oregon's Willamette Valley, this is big news and a very odd event. The last time we had accumulating snow was 4 years ago.

Now sure.. we don't get snow a lot.. and when we do.. mass hysteria ensures all over town as people try to figure out what to do with the stuff (and how to drive in it), schools get canceled and businesses close. When other parts of the country hear about this, they laugh and call us wussy names. But what they don't realize is what happens in Oregon when it snows. There's a little more to it.

I learned this lesson after first moving to Oregon. During my first winter here, in 1995, we happened to have a snow storm similar to the one we are currently experiencing.. 3 - 4 inches on the valley floor. When looking out my window upon hearing that my college classes had been canceled, I was shocked that school could be closed. (I had just moved from Rexburg, Idaho having just had 2 years of record setting deep snow). I marched outside to see what all the fuss was about, and promptly fell on my butt. Ouch.

What I failed to contemplate... was that in Oregon, in the winter... it rains... A LOT! And so our roads and land, are constantly wet, with lots of flowing water running every which way, sometimes enough to flood places. So when it finally does get cold enough to snow, all that water on the roads... freezes solid. So however much snow ends up accumulating, no one ever thinks about all the frozen water underneath it, that turns everything into one big ice skating rink. That is what makes Oregon snow so crazy and entertaining (especially for the people that live in the hills, with all the uber steep paved roads). And so we get cars sliding (I like the one that slid down a steep driveway and through a garage door... I won't mention names) and all manner of sliding, falling chaos.

And so today is day 2 of snow days: No school for Little Calvin and for Dawn, who works at a college. They get to stay home, build snow men and relax in the blankets. Me... my work doesn't close. Ever. We are an industry who can't afford to just shut down for inclement weather. And so I get to come to work, brave the elements.... and do cookies on the way into the office, treating my car like a snowmobile with a loud stereo, whooping loudly and proudly "YEE -HAAAAWing" to myself as I sail sideways through intersections. At least this year I have an office with windows so I can watch the snow fall. It's a wonderful sight!