Well, no joke unless you like Mother Nature's sense of humour. The regularly scheduled Friday Funny has been postponed to bring y'all up to date on our welcome to Spring.
Wednesday, the first day of spring, most of Saskatchewan was greeted with a heckuva blizzard. Almost all the highways in the province were closed or flagged as "travel not recommended". There are tons of images on Facebook and in the news of stranded motorists and highways that are covered in huge drifts of snow.
Pie and I both managed to make it home, although our trucks didn't.
I left work a little early (8:30pm) and was home by 10, after walking the last 1/2 mile. Yep, that close to home and my poor little Chevy just couldn't make it through the last drift! And that hour and a half drive? That normally takes me about 30-40 minutes.
At 10:30 Pie called told me he was leaving work, I told him I didn't think he'd make it and that I had a great room for him at the hotel (the penthouse!) But he insisted on coming home. I told him that the first two grid roads from the highway were in no shape to try
(one had a Suburban or Suburban type truck half buried when I tried it!) I told him his best bet was to go to Delisle
(the next town past ours) and take the blacktop to our grid, with a warning that from that second grid
(with the buried truck) the highway was worse than it was from Saskatoon to Vanscoy
(and that part wasn't great).
On the blacktop he'd need to go slow and watch for drifts and then on our road he'd have to watch for where my truck was stranded in the road.
**side note** Although the highway was icy, visibility sucked and there were some drifts I've driven on worse. The worst part of that night was that it was also SUPER windy. There were a few times that I actually, literally got blown into the other lane :o
While waiting for Pie I was texting back and forth with my friend Scott. Around midnight I got a call from Pie saying that he had almost made it but got stuck in the ditch. I messaged Scott about Pie's situation and that I was going to walk out and meet him with some warmer things
(he has a bit of stuff in his truck but nowhere near what he should, and yes we have argued about that)I bundled up, zipped my cell into my arm pocket and started trekking. You know you really love someone when you leave your warm, cozy house to walk into a blizzard for them! Not to worry friends, despite the storm the visibility on our road was good so it wasn't completely crazy to walk. Not a pleasant stroll though, when you walked into the wind
(which was toward home) it felt like the snow was sandblasting you!
Walking along I could hear my phone start whistling in my pocket (incoming text) and after a few whistles it started to chirp (crickets, incoming phone call). Being bundled up I couldn't easily grab it so I ignored it. Not too far from home I met up with Pie and gave him some warmer stuff then headed for home. Turns out those texts & calls were from Scott, wondering where Pie was and if we needed help. He even went looking for him, what a friend!
Thursday we tried to get my truck out with my friend Janelle's Jeep & our tractor but it wasn't happening. We also had to dig the hay barn free to do chores. Today we finally managed to get both trucks free, thanks to Janelle's husband Joey and their big bad ass truck
(Joey had it at work on Thursday) and Pie's tractor, which had to re-clear the huge drift in front of my truck.
The photos we took don't do the situation justice, unless you have a point of reference. Janelle took on one her cell of my standing on a drift next to Joey's truck. The truck is on the road where Pie had cleared the snow and I'm on about 4' of snow next to the truck,
not sinking in at all! Those drifts were like cement!
We managed to get Pie's truck too, thanks again to Joey. I hadn't known exactly where he went in the ditch and when I saw how far he had to walk... he was about 3 or 4 miles from home!
Needless to say neither Pie nor I went to work Thursday. Tonight Pie got to work a bit late but I didn't go, it was too late by the time we got the trucks out and mine needs to sit in the garage with the snow & ice melting away from around the engine.
Some people may think a snow day is fun, but in reality it means so much more work. Even the simplest chores take longer. Thursday we did the bare minimum, which normally would take about 15 minutes. Instead it took between an hour & a half to two hours! I'm looking forward to going to work Sunday! lol
