Ahhh, the snowmanity!

Over on Heidicoaster I lamented our lack of snow. Today I got what I wished for, in spades.

I even had the gall to go into work after working from home on the previous day off. This morning it was “warm” and wet in my hometown at 6AM so I toodled on my diamond frame to the train. No recumbent this morning…just in case.

When I stepped off the train in Seattle there was two inches on the ground. Yay! I’d found it and I caressed the snow with my knobby tires over a mile into the office. In some places I was the first bike through after the snow.

And it didn’t stop, all day. I got worried word that home was now being deluged with snow and hail. Then my late meeting was canceled and after a rather un-productive day watching cars drive successfully down Battery Street I figured to catch the first train out of town.

Me and thousands of my favorite Seattlites. The train was like a refugee ride out of Mumbai.

It wasn’t quite like this…

…nobody was wearing those headwraps.

Anyway, I wasn’t cramming my bike on there. So I checked the next train didn’t come for 40 minutes. The same with the good bus. The bad bus…if it came at all, was sure to be packed to the gills and unreliable on the worsening roadways.

Ferget it! I’ll just ride.

So I started off with a warning to my fretful mermaids.

I can always call BopOp and have him drive out to meet me if I get stuck.

Those fateful words were still hanging in the air as I started out, caught an edge of some slush, a gust of wind, a row of some nasty chain driven bus grooves and a close driver. Besides, the call would probably precede a 10-15 minute wait in the snow and wind somewhere.
Probably
best
if I just
turn around right now and wait for ol’ reliable; a.k.a. the next train.
Good idea.

I hopped aboard a sparsely populated train and peeled off my layers. Dutifully, at 4:20 we shoved off. Yay, I would be home by 5PM to play in the snow with The Mermaids!

And then
we
stopped.

Let’s just say I fell asleep and woke up 35 minutes later and we hadn’t moved. Ack! It was getting colder out there and now I REALLY could have been home under pedal power before this thing. The Snowmanity! Trapped inside all day watching it fall and now, when my goal is in reach, trapped! Like rats.

But I was warm and chatted with a neighbor about the weather, so I had that goin’ for me.

Finally we rescued the poor stranded train-goers at the first stop who had probably been shoved aside as the early train out of Mumbai pulled up, and then they waited a full 40 minutes longer than normal in the sub freezing, driving snow. I avoided their onrush, got out, rode away, and noticed the next train already pulling into the station as the previous one left. The irony.

Now I was freezing, the wind was amazing, the ice ruts were manageable but constant. And 5 minutes later I was sweating, breathing hard through my iced nose, riding the barren arctic landscape like a lone fox in search of the last lemming. I rode where I pleased…except on the freakishly iced over roads.

Home, sit down, have some warm coffee made fresh by a loving Mermaid and two sips later; YANK!

C’mon Dayeee?! Let’s go outside and play in the snow! I want to play with you!

Down the coffee and away we go. Wax the sled runners a little for show and hit the streets!
Snow Angels, 3 degree pitches and blistering 4 mph runs down a sometimes gritty underlayment.

Nevertheless, the Mermaids stayed warm, stayed dry, and stayed happy; even when we came inside for cocoa.

Tomorrow, I work from home.