Snow Storm '04

Jan 6th Pictures

They predicted and it came. The white stuff started hitting the ground around here in Edmonds at 6AM. Tina was up to see it start. We got about 2.5" here in Edmonds. I got a phone call from Chris at 10AM which woke me up. I actually slept 8 consecutive hours last night, I feel very guilty. Tina was up twice, once at 3AM and again at 6AM. Good thing Chris called me though because Tina's parents were due to arrive at 11:20AM. I checked the flight and luckily they were 1 hour delayed. I started preparing for the trip to the airport. The roads were snow packed but clear from Edmonds to the Airport. I used my push broom, no snow shovel, to clean off half the driveway. I got the Landcruiser loaded up: tire chains, jumper cables, snow plow, food rations and the tent. I headed to the airport around 11:30AM. Approaching the interstate I stopped and picked up a man whose car had slipped into a ditch at 99 and 205th. He had walked two miles to the highway and needed to get to 145th which was another 2 miles. I gave him a lift. I was cruising along about 40 MPH. Once I got to Boeing Field, about 2/3 of the way there, the interstate was fairly clean. I made it to the airport without any real incidents. A snow plow made a U turn in about 30 feet in front of me without signalling on the airport drive. As I was entering the terminal Stan called and said they just landed. It took be about 1 hour and 15 minutes for the drive that is normally 35 minutes. I met them in baggage claim. It started snowing pretty hard by the time we left the airport. We headed back north on I5. The first incident we approached was 3 buses stuck on the ramp from 509 to I5. One was an articulated bus that was jack-knifed. None of them had chains. The next incident was on I5 near the Olive Way exit. A firetruck was stopped on the side of the interstate tending to an accident. A big Caddy in the lane next to me started spinning out. He almost hit me and then went the other way. He almost hit the parked firetruck and then almost hit the concrete wall. He came to a stop bumper to bumper with the firetruck facing the wrong direction with hitting anything. The rest of the trip was quite uneventful. We arrived home about 1 and a half hours later. I ran a few errands this afternoon but mainly hung out with the grandparents and the fam. I ran out of firewood the other day so I have been trying to acquire some more. I've made arrangements for a weekend delivery of alder. I was worried that we were going to loose power tonight due to the predicted freezing rain. Being that I was out of wood that would have made for a cold night. I called my buddy DD and arranged for a loan of a small load of wood. I started a fire after dinner and heated the living right up. It's after midnight now and we haven't lost power yet. There was a little freezing rain but not much. I remember the freezing rain storms in Indiana in early spring. Once the trees got about 1" of ice on them they just started coming down and took anything in their way. The fire has been nice tonight, I think I am going to keep this up. I have some temperature sensors on order that I will install in the basement and a few other rooms. When the fire is burning good I close the upstairs registers and manually force the heater to come on to heat up the basement a bit. With the temperature sensors in place I can have the computer handle that through the Home Automation program, HomeSeer. Khalila's umbilical cord stump fell off tonight. I am planning on keeping it but I am not sure what to do with it yet, any ideas? I took some pics of the house tonight with the snow.