Home from the storm

We've made it through another holiday season. Just about. We still have New Year's ahead of us, but after what we went through during the run-up to Christmas, it should be a piece of cake.

Those circumstances, of course, included my father-in-law's heart operation Dec. 17 and his death two days later. It was sad, but he had become a sick man over the last few years, and the operation didn't seem to accomplish much except transfer some of my FIL's financial assets to the hospital's income statement. Pardon my cynicism about the American health care system, but in this case the shoe fits very well.

My wife had told me he sounded "resigned" to having the operation, as if he had been pushed into doing it and finally said yes to stop them from pushing more.

The family was sad, of course, and many were crying during the visitation, service and the burial. Neither my wife nor I did. We don't cry very easily, and we both knew very well what the chances were of a sick 78-year-old man surviving major heart surgery. We had been bracing ourselves for bad news for quite a while. So it goes.

Since a big snowstorm was on the way, we left for the funeral a day earlier than planned to avoid having to driving through the storm. We arrived Saturday evening and visited a cousin. The snow started moving in after dark.

The snow continued for most of Sunday. I went out in the morning to get breakfast, and we stayed at the motel most of Sunday, watching the Packers' awful performance during the windstorm at Chicago. But I had to go out during the afternoon to get David a different pair of pants before the wake started. By that time, about eight inches of snow had fallen.

A plow had made one pass through the lot, and I managed to back the car to that path OK. But then I came to a large ridge of snow that the plow had built. There was no way to get to the road except to plunge through this scale model of the Rocky Mountains. I gave the car a running start, gunned it when we hit the Rockies--and made it through to the other side. When we returned, I crossed at the same place.

It was the first of several running starts I had to make. Late that afternoon, we left for the visitation in town. (By then, the Rockies had been plowed away.) That involved driving down U.S. 8 through downtown Ladysmith. Most of the snow on the highway had been plowed up into a big windrow down the middle of the street. It was about five feet high and five feet wide--no way you could plow your way through the Himalayas.

These pictures were taken on Monday morning, but it looked the same Sunday evening. Here is the street at an intersection, looking down the highway ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/LadSnow-US8-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

A little further down the highway, we saw a big snow blower attacking the mountain range, blowing the snow into big dump trucks ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Ladsnow-Windrow-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

Once filled, the dump truck would haul the snow away ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Ladsnow-Bigtruck-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

... dump it and then return to the end of the line (far right) for another load ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Ladsnow-Snowblow-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

When we turned onto a side street, it was the same thing, except the street was narrower. At intersections, where we had to stop at stop signs, we came upon intersecting windrows. Stop--then a running start and gun it over to the other side.

This one wasn't that big. But note the car coming from the other direction, just barely visible ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Ladsnow-SideStreet-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

The snow was also blown into interesting patterns on the eaves at the funeral home ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Ladsnow-Overhang-12-07.jpg[/IMG]

Sunday night and Monday morning, we wondered what was happening back home--the forecast we read on the internet sounded ominous, and the radar images indicated heavy snow. The storm would be over Monday morning, and the parking area behind my house would be plowed out--but would we still have a foot of snow to shovel out on the walk leading to the house? That was on my mind as I drove home Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, my son Phil was en route from Detroit. We called each other's cell phones to keep track of our progress--I was relieved to discover we would get home before he arrived. He doesn't have a key, after all.

Finally, at about 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve, we got home--to find that we had all of one inch of snow to deal with. That's all--most had fallen as rain. Phil arrived about 45 minutes later.

Because of the funeral and our trip out of town, he only had two full days here. Tonight was his last night--he hits the road Thursday morning. But we got to watch a movie together and talk for a while. It's probably our last face-to-face talk till next summer.