Wishful Slacker

Still hard to believe this happened on Lake Shore!

One week ago!

Snow Day, continued

 
The snow finally stopped yesterday, and we bundled up Baby Girl and took her outside for her first snow walk (no worries, we were out for approximately 3 minutes.  There's only so much a 12 weeker can take, after all!).

There were many people out shoveling their cars and just walking around, taking it all in!  I love how muted and hushed everything sounds when there is that much snow over everything!

Some small improvement on Roscoe Street! 


But not so much for this car...








After all that, it was time for a nap!


We did not make it as far as Wolcott with the baby, but my husband took this picture earlier in the day.  It will be some time before people on these side streets will be able to get anywhere by car!

IT'S SNOWTACULAR!

We are in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2011!  I have never experienced anything quite like the snowstorm that came in yesterday afternoon.  You know, everyone always talks about the horrid winters in Chicago.  And yes, there is no denying that Chicago winters are crazy harsh, but it's more because of the wind and cold temps.  This is our fifth winter in Chicago, and we really haven't had lots of snow here.  It always seems to skirt just north or south of us, and we seem to be pretty protected by the lake's influences.  So that makes this especially insane!

At 2 am I looked out the window, and instantly thought that all the cars across the street had been moved!  I have never, ever, ever seen cars so covered in snow in all my life (my poor husband has heard me exclaim this at least 20 times this morning.  Really.).  At the moment the snow total is at almost 21 inches (and it seems to be winding down).  Wind gusts at the lakefront measured in at 70 mph last night, and Lakeshore Drive was shut down after hundreds of people got trapped in their cars during their commute home.  We even got some thunder and lightning!  Trusty Tom Skilling from WGN News just announced that this is now officially the third largest snowstorm in Chicago record-keeping history.

Here are some of the pics I've taken.  Everyone in Chicago has the same scenes out their own windows, but I thought that you folks outside of the city might be interested. :-) 

This was taken around 4 pm from our place, about an hour and a half into the snowfall.  Note those cars parked across the street...


Then it got crazy!



And here we are this morning!


WHERE ARE THE CARS?!


You can barely see the outline of a car, just to the right of the light pole.


I took these from our building lobby (where I could stay warm and dry!):





Digging out!  God bless our indoor parking!
 


That hump across the street is indeed a car. 


Now I want to get all bundled up and go tromp around in all this! Be safe out there everyone!

Winter: We may hate it, but it sure can be pretty

We ran into snow last Saturday on our drive from Chicago to Rochester, Michigan.  Which, this time of year, often cannot be avoided along the stretch of Indiana and western Michigan that receives so much lake effect precipitation.  I would rate last Saturday's experience as a "medium" along the white-knuckle-I-hate-driving-through-this-much-snow scale, so it really could have been worse.  But as we were going through the soup, my sister text to tell us that it was sunny and clear where she lives in Kalamazoo, about an hour and a half out from the snowy mess we found ourselves in at the time.  Sure enough, blue skies beckoned ahead, and before we knew it the dark clouds were gone.  The bright sun reflected off the freshly fallen snow which coated all the tree branches, and everything was suddenly really, really pretty.    

It was one of those moments that you knew wouldn't last long and that soon the bright sun would melt the trees down to their stark wintery nakedness.  Perhaps we appreciated the sight even more knowing that it had a time limit :-)