Not As Tough As I Thought

This is a weather post.  Feel free to skip if you are tired of my awe at what kind of a snow vacuum I moved to.

Seriously, though, it snows ALL THE TIME.

When I checked the forecast last night, it was calling for some serious snow to start around 5am, and temps in single digits.  I shot my running partner a quick e-mail to tell her that I am totally up for cancellation.

This morning when the alarm rang, I hopefully eyed my cell phone.  No messages.  Sighing, I started the coffee and the layering process.  I cracked open a pair of hand warmers.  I checked the computer.  No new e-mails (well, from Sharon.  Eddie Bauer and JoAnn Fabrics had sent one each).

No way was I making the chicken call.  If North Carolinian Sharon wasn't making the call, Chicago Tiffany certainly wasn't.  I patted my Forester and told her to work her magic, and started my slow journey to the park.

The roads were awful.  AWFUL.  I expected it on the side roads. But it is disconcerting getting on the highway and wondering if one is actually ON the highway, let a lone where the lanes are.  I was still slipping a bit at 35 mph.  10 minutes after I was supposed to be at the meeting place, Sharon called.  I assured her I was almost at the park, and that the trip was taking much longer than it should.  She told me to go as slow as I needed to, she was just checking to see if I was ok.  She didn't have to drive on the highway, so wasn't as slowed up.

We were the only people running at 7 (ish).  The lot we were parked in hadn't been plowed, and we giggled as we started trying to make our way down the path.  Miraculously, the Park System had a plow out to shovel the path (but my town didn't have plows on our streets?) So then we could actually run.

It was beautiful.  As it started to get light, the scene was huge, swirling snowflakes, fluffy piles of snow everywhere, frozen lake, puffs on all the trees.  It turned out that the temps hadn't dropped out of the low 20's yet - perfect for 2 ladies who have invested in Syracuse winter running clothing.  We had a blast.  (And the entire trail to ourselves).  Snow is really not as much of a hinderance to people as it is to motorized vehicles. We ran our whole route, and saw one other woman as we finished, and a group of men starting out as we got into our cars.  We felt pretty proud of ourselves.

The drive home, though at least not in the dark, was still awful.  The snow was coming down hard.  There were more people out, and many who didn't think they needed to slow down.  And then slid all over the road.  Jeff called to ask if I was ok, and to say it was snowing so hard he thought snowblowing to be futile - but I could call him if I couldn't get in the driveway and he would shovel me a path.  I made it home, and good old Forester plowed right up the driveway.  It was admittedly a stressful drive home.  I am confident in my snow driving abilities and in my Subaru, but not in the abilities of, for instance, the car full of teenagers that rode my back bumper all the way down my street.  I was glad to be home, and told Jeff I was in for the day, despite my plans to go to church, and meet a friend and her girls for skating and lunch.

After more coffee and a hot shower, I decided I was being a baby and we could go. And Jeff pointed to the white out conditions outside and the lack of visible street.  "We're not going anywhere," he announced. I called my friend and cancelled, sheepishly.  She, a life long Central New Yorker sounded surprised, but told me not to feel at all bad and we could reschedule.  But note: she was still going to church.

When I sat down to write this, the sun came out to taunt me. Jeff just announced that he is going to work on the driveway now that the snow has stopped. Granted, I still haven't seen a plow on our street (and you can't miss those things), but there have been a number of other cars.

I feel as if I passed one Central New Yorker test this morning, and failed another.  Surely we could have made it this morning to church, right? Why did I let Jeff talk me out of it? And what strange mechanism of my inner workings drives me to feel like a sissy if I am not living up to the utmost level of toughness in every situation? Couldn't I just enjoy a leisurely morning reading the paper instead of kicking myself for not putting my children in a vehicle on bad roads?

Oh, yay, it's snowing again and the sky is grey.  CNY - it changes that fast. The other thing about CNY - those are lake effect snow bands that come through, so ten miles away there might be no snow at all while you are getting 6 inches. I still feel a little foolish, though, knowing that my pastor in his mid-week e-mail will proudly report the number of people that did show up for service this morning.