So, I woke up this morning to a light snowfall, which was a nice surprise, since we only get snow here once or twice a year (we’re only like 50 feet above sea level). I walked out to my bus stop, and just missed my bus, which was about five minutes early. A few other people showed up, and we all griped about missing the bus, and talked about the snow, and then another bus came. This driver was going very slowly, and wouldn’t even pull up to the curb (no chains). We all piled on, and had an interesting bus ride. Even crawling along at no more than 20 MPH, the bus still skidded a couple of times, and one time nearly drifted into a parked car. By the time we got to the Rose Quarter, no one was reading their papers anymore, everyone was watching out the window at all the cars skidding along the slight incline on the way to the bridge.
Normally, I catch the bus at 7:30am and I’m at work by 8am or so. Today, at 8am, I was only to the Steel Bridge - at which point the bus driver pulled over to the curb and killed the engine. She refused to go across the bridge without chains. Some people were grumbling, but I can’t say I blame her, there’s a pretty steep incline on the downtown side of the bridge.
So at this point, I was stuck at the Steel bridge in the snow, with just a jacket and a hat on. I wasn’t prepared for the hike through snow to work. In dry weather, I could easily have walked to work in 15-20 minutes, but today it would have taken a half hour and I would have arrived half-frozen with sneakers completely soaked through. So I turned around, and walked over to a McDonalds a few blocks away, where Annie (who had to turn back from driving to work in Beaverton at the entrance to US-26) was able to pick me up and bring me home, where I’m now VPN’d into work, and can hopefully be somewhat productive today. If I wasn’t pushing a deadline, I would just take a personal day.
I'm a 30-year-old 
MrBread Says:
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 11:36 am.
Yeah. I was at Cori’s this morning, and we had to get her kids to school, only to find out once we arrived that school was, in fact, closed (despite what katu had to say about it). On the way, we passed two #8 buses that were simply stopped in the middle of the road.
The only other guy that came in to the warehouse this morning told me that we was puttering around his house, listening to the radio talk about how the world was ending, dismissed it because they’ve been saying that for weeks, stepped onto his porch–bike in hand–and wished he’d looked out a window sooner.
Sig Says:
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 7:10 pm.
My first sergeant picked me up in Silverdale for the drive down to Camp Murray (across from Fort Lewis). Normally an hourlong drive, it took us a full 2 hours–and we were just ahead of several big wrecks. There were people showing up over an hour after our show time.
Wish I’d been late. It was a huge waste of time. More of the same tomorrow, but then I’m on leave through the end of the month. And unemployed after that. =/
Sig
Urn Says:
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 11:58 pm.
I’ve had surprising good luck getting to and from Redmond during all this snow tomfoolery. I learned as much in Ellensburg about driving in the snow as anything else.
The parking lots have been downright rink-like. :)