Here is my thoughts on the snow. Mom

Monday Nov 14, 2011

Haines

This week we had our first snow storm. At first I didn’t think it was so bad. It snowed maybe six inches and then it rained it all off on Friday. Sunday we got our first big storm. We got up and had probably a foot of snow. It continued to snow all day. By evening we had another eight inches,. We went to the Konahele’s for dinner and when we came out to leave two hours later, we had two-three feet of snow on the ground. We were grateful that we had gotten snow tires. Still we got stuck backing out of the drive and had to shovel a bit to get out. The roads in town weren’t plowed, and it was slow going home. Most of Haines is on a hillside, so there are a lot of up hills, and a lot of people slide off the side of the road. It costs $400 to get a tow truck to pull you out. It does remind you to be careful when driving. When we got home, we backed into our carport of trees and took our back light out on the side of the house. Still we were home safe. This morning we took one look at another additional foot of snow and realized we wouldn’t be going anywhere until we got plowed out. The snow plow came about 9:00am but told us we had better not go to town for awhile because the town roads weren’t plowed yet and there were two or three cars off the road on our hill. After he plowed and I took a look at the high banks of snow, I begin to wonder where he will put the rest of the snow this winter. The banks of snow are taller than our car right now. While it is rather fun in some ways, it appears this will be a long winter. Dad is out snow- blowing the sidewalks at the church, and our “carport,” and a trail to it—carport picture on the right. At least this gives him good exercise. It is still snowing, and they call these “now flurries.” The flurries consist of 8-12 inches according to the weather forecast. The flurry appears to last all day with just a steady light snow—but it lays done a lot. This is not a flurry in my book, but it is all in the perspective, right. In Alaska, flurries are the same as a major storm in Idaho. With some trepidation, I look forward to seeing a major storm. I guess it can drop 3-5 feet of wet snow in one storm if it blows in off the ocean. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen often. Well it is 4:00pm here and is dusk; it will be dark in half an hour. It is semi-light at 7:00am now —lighter by 8:00am. So that gives us about 8 hrs of light which isn’t a lot different from Rexburg. The sun isn’t up until around 10:00am though and never gets very high in the sky. It just kind of skims the edge of one set of mountains.