Merry Christmas, nearly everyone.
- Ogden Nash
Well, there's some good news...and some bad news. Portland has a white Christmas, which is both pretty cool and very unusual. The entire metro area looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting...or at least it did until it started to rain yesterday. Now a lot of it looks like a swamp...a swamp filled with ankle-deep ice water. Guess who's thankful for his waterproof Timberland boots right about now? Swamp Thing...you make my heart sing....
The bad news is that the snow is melting. Actually, it's not so much that the snow is melting, but that the ice is taking longer to disappear. Over the past 10 days, the Portland area has had been 14"-18" of snow depending on where you are and your elevation. Much of the snow that hit the road melted and then turned to ice. Over the past few days, as traffic has worn the ice down, most roads have developed what look like wagon wheel ruts. In some cases several inches deep, these ruts can make a short trip to work resemble a trip through a Third World country in a clown car. The major highways aren't too bad, but surface streets and parking lots are a nightmare. I haven't driven over roads like these since I traveled along the front lines in war-ravaged Croatia. Between the sliding around, and the ruts, it was exceedingly difficult to safely navigate even a simple trip from work to the grocery store and then home. What normally is a very simple (and short) trip was a white-knuckle adventure.
After this area's longest cold snap in something like 40 years, it finally looks as if we'll start to warm up, so with any luck the ice and snow will disappear within a few days. I never thought I'd be missing the normal cold, damp greyness that is a Portland winter, but I'm there. Thankfully, I'm warm, safe, and dry...and I hope that all y'all are, wherever you may be. Now get off the computer and enjoy Christmas, willya?
