Sleeping at work? I'd like to never do that again please.

Alabama is one of those places that usually shuts down at the hint of bad weather. And why, you ask, do they do that? Because the absurdly crazy reports on the news today of abandoned cars, shut down interstates, and people stranded in all manner of places (work, shelters, cars, stranger's houses...) Birmingham is simply not prepared for any type of winter weather, much less a freak of nature snow storm in the middle of the day, so yesterday when it became clear the snow was sticking, EVERYONE tried to leave the city at the exact same moment. The worst possible moment to be leaving, when the snow was just melting under the warm ground and causing ice to form under the fresh snow that was falling...I found myself one of the lucky ones who was stuck at work, and even luckier, I was with my muscle man!

We carpool, so when the weather started turning sour, we decided to try to get out of town and home to our dogs. 2 hours later, and nearly out of gas, we had only moved 3/4 of a mile from my work. So we found a parking lot and walked back to my work, where there was at least food (and lots of booze, my ceo's were stuck too, along with a dozen or so coworkers). We thought about trying again before the sun set, since we hadn't been able to get in touch with our neighbors and no one was home to feed the dogs, but our better judgement told us to just stay put, worst case scenario we would wind up with hungry, upset dogs when we finally were able to get home. Thankfully, the  neighbors came through and had their kids come feed the dogs (that sentence doesn't do justice the difficulty that task was, but I'll leave it at that for brevity). So now, with my bosses out to get more food for the evening, we slowly started accepting that we would have to sleep in my office. Great.


 




I've at least got a decent size office, with a locking door, and we had grabbed some blankets before we left the car, and I keep a stash of jackets and sweaters at work that along with a chair cushion became makeshift pillows, so not the worst set up. But still... It's work... So it was quite the sleepless night, plus we knew that we would want to try to leave as SOON as the roads cleared, otherwise we would be in the chaos of all the other workbound refugees trying to get home. All night I would wake up and check the traffic website, only to hear reports of all lanes blocked due to an accident or abandoned vehicles. But finally, just after the sun rose, it looked better than it had all night. The interstate we use was still delayed in downtown, but it looked like if you could just make it down far enough before getting onto the interstate it would be smooth sailing, and off we went into the cold to pick up the car, get gas and try our luck.



Since both of us hate normal traffic, we already know quite a few back roads to avoid the interstate, so after some very creative navigation and at least 3 "uh oh, not this way" u-turns, we arrived on the interstate to find that not only was our theory correct and NO ONE was on the road, but that the ice/snow was melted where cars had been trekking all night, and the single melted strip wasn't terribly slick. (again, for brevity's sake, I'm leaving out details, but it is worth mentioning we felt bad breaking gov't prompts to stay off roads except in emergencies, but the cop that rode in front of us for 4 miles didn't seem to mind us driving. Plus we figured a big dog stuck outside in the cold, a puppy who's never been alone overnight, and an old dog who acts out when he's not happy kinda qualified as an emergency)

Once we were off the interstate, it's thankfully just a few turns to our house, on pretty major roads. So the ice wasn't very bad there, although it was definitely in worse shape than the interstate, and would have been very dangerous had my muscle man not known what he was doing (we passed 3 or 4 cars in a very deep ditch just before our subdivision). I was so excited to finally be home I could hardly contain myself. When we pulled into the driveway I just literally started jumping up and down in the driveway like a little school girl! We could finally enjoy some of this gorgeous snow, and better yet, take our little snow puppy out into it! I know that's petty, but I don't have a kid, and our puppy is pretty darned cute and has never experienced snow =P And most importantly, we were home! Not stranded, not stuck, not wrecked, and not stuck for another night in an office or shelter or some other place that's not home. As for the dogs, they are all quite fine now, and yes, our little snow dog definitely had a great time playing in the yard! =D

What an interesting two days to say the least!! So glad to be able to end it on such a happy note!