I couldn’t tell you anything about whether the fire is so delightful, as I didn’t get to see it…but I guess Bones was scared of the fan in the fireplace!

As I’m sure everyone’s heard, we are maintaining our wonderful Minnesota winter weather.  For the past 4 weekends, I believe, we have had some type of freezing rain, snow, blowing snow, or blizzard going on.  I have been fortunate enough to get to drive from Farmington or the MOA to Hugo at least once during each of these fun weather situations!

Side Note:  I just looked, and it’s actually been 5 consecutive weekends with ice and snow!

Our wonderful snow began on Friday night.  Since I had to work at 10 on Saturday morning, I figured roads should be relatively plowed; enough to get by, that is.

This was my first problem.

Our association uses a fantastic snow removal service that consists of 2 pickups with plow attachments, a bobcat or 2, a couple snow blowers, and a bunch of people with shovels who speak varying degrees of English.  As we have a rather LARGE development (consisting of 4 townhome neighborhoods, a school, and single family homes beyond the school), to say this is inadequate is quite an understatement.

David ‘got’ to dig me out of the 2-foot piles left by the plows in the street.  Fun.  So it took about another half hour before I got out of the neighborhood.  I managed to get to work okay, despite being able to see only part of one lane most of the drive down (and that was before my windshield wipers were mostly ice!).  I was not too excited about my impending drive back home that afternoon, or coming back the next morning.  [oooh, foreshadow-y.]

For those of you who think people would tend to stay inside during a blizzard, you are correct to an extent.  The morning was quiet (while people were presumably digging themselves out), but people in Minnesota have a strange desire to shop during severe weather.  If it’s just cold, they may or may not come out.  But if it’s a snowstorm, they will shop.  Trust me, after 8+ years of working in retail, I know.  And come on, it’s the Mall of America.  We had plenty of visitor-types who wanted to shop, plus all the people who’d come to town for the Vikings game.  [cue ominous music]

About 1:30 Saturday afternoon, we were getting questions about whether the mall was going to be closing due to weather.  Around this time, I also got a call from David telling me he was getting me a hotel room for the night because he didn’t want me to have to make the trip home & back again.  A bunch of stores were already planning on closing early (2:30-4pm or so), so we were waiting to hear back from our District Manager about the possibility of our closing early as well.

Then mass transit and the airport shut down, or something.  So everybody came to shop!!  And who wants to sit in an airport or the hotel (they weren’t planning on staying at) in their regular clothes?!  We sell pj pants & sweats & undies!  It was established that the Mall would be closing at 6 (and you wouldn’t believe how upset some people were about the mall’s closing early).  Since I had a hotel room, the company would cover it & AE would get one as well.  Woohoo, party at the hotel!!  Um, I guess that means I need to get some pj’s and clothes for tomorrow…  And everything else.  Planning on looking really cute for work on Sunday considering I have no hair dryer, straightener, or brush.  Even though hotels typically have hair dryers, that’s not going to do a whole lot of good without a hairbrush.

There ended up being 7 of us going to the hotel, 2 of whom were picked up within a couple hours.  There was something like 2 feet of snow in the intersections.  Good thing I didn’t try to go home!

Instead of watching TV or a movie or something, guess what we did?!  Watch cars get stuck on the road, in ditches, etc!  And try to take pictures of them with cell phone cameras!

First we saw a little car get stuck.  Then a truck came and covered it with snow.  The people got out and went into the truck and they all left.  (This took place over about a 20-minute time period, after which we took an hour-long break from snow watching to eat.)

Then we saw a parade of 10 plows drive past, followed by a little car who zoomed past a couple of them and got stuck.  The plows kept going.  Serves the car right, I guess.

Shortly after the plows went through, we saw more cars get stuck.  On the newly plowed road.  Go figure.  One went in the ditch and the people came running out of another car with shovels.  To dig the car out of the ditch.  Right.  Let me know how that works out for you.

The black blobs in the snow are the people.  You can kind of see the car (far right, mostly covered by the roof of the hotel’s water park).

This car got stuck in front of the snow plow (far right).  Shoot.

This one got stuck shortly after that last plow went past and thought it would be a good idea to reverse out of the ditch.

Hey, at least we were entertained for the evening.

I’m pretty sure I usually look more put-together for my days off than I did for work on Sunday!  Sorry customers, I did what I could with hotel shampoo & conditioner, finger-combing, and bobby pins & a ponytail holder!

By the time I got home from work Sunday night (some 36 hours later), our street was plowed.  The same could not be said for any of the other streets in our neighborhood, however!  And the main-ish road was semi-navigable…one side was cars who couldn’t get to their homes (like I said, no other streets were plowed), and the other side was the trucks containing the snow-removal ‘equipment,’ possibly including the shovelers?!)

At least I had Monday off.

The view outside my door and living room window…after they finally came through to clear the sidewalks.  (They are snowblown 1 snow blower’s width.  Helpful.)

Those piles of snow on either side of the sidewalk are about 3 feet deep.  Bones is so confused; she can’t get to the grass or off the sidewalk!

The end.

P.S.  The Metrodome collapsed, in case you hadn’t heard.  [sarcasm]