Stranded and Grateful

I left quite the cliffhanger on my last post. Right? Well, maybe not a scary cliffhanger since you knew I was safe. But, happily, my adventure didn't end there.

Snow Storm

How was your snow storm? Maybe you didn't have one, but we did. See the pretty VW Golf in the pic up there? Mine. I'm so proud of how I handled myself in the storm. Clearly, I should have left the office earlier. Like BEFORE the snow storm started. I mean the weather people were very clear about what was coming our way.

I knew I would be leaving work early. I had the weather hourly forecast on my computer at work so that I could verify the storm status. My plan was to leave an hour before the office closed. We were scheduled to close at 2:00, so I thought I'll be fine heading out at 1:00. But then there was an email that said "quickly deteriorating conditions" closing at 1:00. This was 12:45. Eek! I have never left the office so quickly in my life.

One-half mile and forty minutes later I skillfully placed my car off the road and abandoned it. That was a stressful forty minutes. If you saw any of the news about the NC storm you know the storm came extra fast. What I couldn't believe was that the road was already ice. The snow was packed down to ice. I got to practice "turning into the skid". Never had to do that before. Nailed it!

I got to practice pumping my brakes. Thing is...didn't help. Hence my decision to pull off the road.

So I put on my gloves, got my gym bag and started walking. I wasn't about to walk near the road where cars were skidding and colliding. Instead I walked up the hill to the nearest parking lot and began walking through parking lots towards my office. I originally had thoughts of waking to a hotel five miles away. After thirty minutes of walking into the snow that was blowing sideways into my face, I had to re-assess the plan. I went to the office and found that there were others back at the office. I was not alone.

I was safe, warm and sheltered.

Local Winter Storm {and advisory}

This pic is when we lived in the house right before my Dad built the "New House". That's me on the left. Sissy is beside me and Sis is in the blue coat. {Hey, Sis, if you are reading this, I didn't cut you out of the pic on the left. Whoever took the pic must have been distracted by Cindy.}

It Sure is Cold!

I thought I'd share another image of my NYC trip from last month. I was reading Inslee's post about NYC which made me nostalgic for my time there. That is until I read that the temperature is 10 degrees and with the windchill factor, it feels like 2 degrees. {2 degrees!!}  If you aren't familiar with Inslee you should totally check her out. She has amazing sketches!