Surviving the Tuscaloosa Winter Storm

Well, this has been an interesting week. The forecasters said, just a dusting, if anything. The famous last words.

A flew flakes started to fly, and it kept going and going. Wait, it's accumulating and now it's becoming icy. Uh oh! All around town the masses cleared out of work, kids were being picked up and the roads to home were clogged! It's one thing if the roads were packed like a gameday, but there was a lot of ice on those roads. The wrecks began to pile up and the travel moved at a snail's pace, if at all.

As afternoon became night, it became clear, there was no way I was going to drive from Skyland Boulevard, to I-359, over the Hugh Thomas Bridge, up Highway 43 North and past Country High School to get home. Not going to happen.

Thankfully, there was room available up the road from the station.

In the motel room was this device on the wall. What is it? I pick up the handle and HOT air shoots into my face!

The next day, I get home and the heat is out! Ugh! It's time to get firewood together. I head to Winn-Dixie to buy logs and they were closed! What?! Walmart... closed! Unreal. So, I end up in my dark backyard trying to cut and chop anything I could.

Sadly, I just had this roaring fire a couple of weekends ago after cutting down trees.

The cutting tools were gathered. The chopping underway. Look at that gathered wood. Those sticks!

Okay, the sticks were a product of what was left of various branches being cut up.

So, I post a status on Facebook about this and friends from around Tuscaloosa felt bad, while my northern friends said things like toughen up and didn't you live in Maine. Huh? C'mon people, it doesn't matter where you live, if it's 19 degrees outside and your heat is out, that's extreme. Isn't it? I didn't complain about it, I just shared what happened and said, brr. 19 is cold, isn't it? Haha. I know they are teasing.

One friend who knows my love of clam chowder commented on my Facebook post 'and now chowder anywhere, I bet.' He read my mind, but I did have a can in the pantry! Bring it on, soup time. I heated it up to a boiling level and then burnt my tongue. Fantastic.

How did you survive the Tuscaloosa winter storm?