TOO MUCH SNOW!

It started snowing on Friday. And it hasn't stopped.

Saturday, I went to work to do some grading. I left WAY before I was done because it was getting bad. I ended up getting stuck in the parking lot after backing out of my spot:

That's my car in the middle of the driving lane. An hour later, I was finally free.
I saw 3 cars stuck on my 2.5 mile drive home, and then I got stuck in our driveway.


This was the problem: a layer of ice underneath.

Yesterday morning, we were still getting snow, but I had to make a pass with the snowblower. Here are some photos of the yard after that, and NOTE THAT WE ONLY HAD AN INCH OF ICY MELTED SNOW HERE-AND-THERE BEFORE ALL OF THIS FELL:

Edge of the patio by the back steps.


Looking the other direction. Note the snow up to and over the fence.


Front yard.

The snow was wet near the bottom (as you can see that the sidewalks were damp in that last photo), so it was DAMN heavy. I got in the house and had sweated through my shirt:

Only dry at the bottom.


Same. Gross. My wife refused to hug me. I understood.

The good news is that I actually got out on a run yesterday afternoon! I ran to the library and back to pick up a movie for a movie night ("Avengers: Age of Ultron"), and then headed right back out for a few more miles. I found St. Paul had plowed the trail along River Road too soon (the night before maybe?) so there were 2-3 inches of snow on it, but the Minneapolis side was more freshly plowed. I ended up getting 6.01 miles in. It was snowing pretty hard on my run: I couldn't see the Minneapolis side across the river while running in St. Paul near the Lake/Marshall Bridge! It wasn't cold, but I got home with snow plastered to my brows:

The good news was that the sore spot on top of my left foot was fine trudging through the snow!

AND THEN WE GOT ANOTHER 2-3 INCHES BEFORE 7 PM, so the boys and I headed back out to shovel and snow-blow last night:

The boys built "seats." Same angle as the "edge of the patio" shot from
earlier in the day. Note the extra snow; now it's up over the patio chairs.

All in all, we heard St. Paul got 16+ inches over the weekend. At our place, we got over 12 inches by noon on Sunday, and then (as noted above) another 2-3 more by last night. St. Paul and Minneapolis public schools all declared a "snow day" today, but Henry's private school is still on. So we're heading out in this mess shortly.

In related posts, I had 2 posts recently about this winter's weather: first comparing photos from last year and this year, and second showing what it's doing to my training last year compared to this year. Also, if you missed it, here's Thursday's post about learning the pain in my left foot is bone spurs.

Sidenote: A trail running friend sent me a note yesterday afternoon. She said "Darn snow is messing with the season! I was down at the Zumbro race over the weekend to crew a friend. Out of 130 100 milers, only 20 finished (my friend I was crewing did finish!) Less than half of the field finished the 50 mile and the 17 mile was cancelled. It was an epic year! Zumbro is known for its weird weather, but this year, Zumbro out-Zumbroed itself."