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11:15 A.M. - Saturday, Dec. 02, 2006 All during the day, the weather went for rain to ice to snow ping-pong back and forth. All day one by one those that lived at a distance and wanted to get home left work. Those of us that financially had no choice, tuned out the dreaded weather reports and kept working. By five pm the phone was ringing endlessly, as night shift was unable to get to work, the roads iced over. At 7pm, day shift was ready to leave, the few of us that remained. Out to the parking and to our cars blanketed in ice. My friend parked next to me and the two of us discovered our Blazer doors were frozen shut, we were freezing watching each other beat the doors and try to break the ice to get out of the blowing rain/ice. Thank goodness a wonderful guy came through the parking lot and started helping each of us with a can of deicer and a window scrapper and got both our door opened. We jumped in and started the Blazers. I started a frantic search trying to locate my ice scraper. Nothing. Who doesn't have an ice scraper in their vehicle that lives in snow/ice country?? My work friend hollowed out she could not find an ice scrapper either, I could see her feet on the roof of her Blazer trying to locate one in the very back, her side doors frozen shut. I was laughing so hard tears were freezing my lashes. I tried to bang the ice off my windshield with my glove and they ended up sticking to the ice. Here he came again the work guy, he asked what we were doing and we both sheepishly admitted some how the ice scrapers from both our cars had been stolen? ok�we never checked to see if they were in our Blazers. She asked him, "Don't all cars come with an ice scraper on the floorboard?" Well, that is where mine always was too so I thought it a reasonable question. While laughing he cleaned the ice from both our Blazers while we followed him around thanking him profusely. My work buddy happened to look over and told me his car was covered in ice and had not even been started yet. He had been working on cleaning ours for over 45 min. leaving his untouched. We both felt awful and told him to please start his car and we would help him peal the ice from his car. He did start it but we stood by his car in laughing-stitches trying to figure out how to help with none of the ice removal tools we needed. He was not about to hand over his ice scraper that was frozen to his ungloved hand. He said this to us, "My first thought when I came out to the parking lot was these women were left stranded here as most of the men lived far off and had been long gone. I decided before I went to my car I was going to make sure all the women out here had their car doors opened, and the ice removed. That was all that was important to me." That night an ole hippie friend was our wingless angel. Thank you I managed to inch my way several miles on icy roads to a place I could spend the night. Hubby had reserved the room for me while I was at work. It appeared nothing in the little town was open after 9 pm, when I was slipping (literally) through town except maybe good ole Wal-Mart. Doors had closed early due to the lack of people out on those ice-covered roads. I did not want to chance driving down the road to Wally and noticed a Hardies sign on�they were getting ready to shut down, as I was the first guest for over an hour, so they said. I ended up with a chicken salad and then to my little room out of the weather. I was cold, hungry, and tired, it was 9:30 pm, and it had been 7:00 pm when I walked out of the work place and started my quest. Two and a half hours to get 8 miles down the road; we had to get into our vehicles first. The alarm went off too early and I didn't want to even look out the window. The weather had predicted snow over the night hours. Back out in the cold before sunrise, my door was frozen shut again. I tried the side door and thank goodness I had not closed it all the way and all I needed to do was climb to the front seat. There was snow all over the back seat that had blown in during the night�I am glad I left that door cracked open. The little motel was a bed and breakfast so as the Blazer warmed I went in and got a hot cup of coffee, a danish and waited for the snow and ice to melt. The ride to work was slow going the roads were solid ice driving in 4/wheel was useless. I was able to drive home last night even though the temperatures stayed in the 20's the sun was out and the road crews did an awesome job of clearing the roadways. This morning was my first daylight glimpse of the winter storm. How breathtaking. The view of the world from this mountain is a shimmering fairy tale place. Ice covered trees, snow covered ground, the awesome bright blue sky as the backdrop and bright sun bringing a mystical feel to this part of the world. I feel blessed to be gazing on this beautiful sight. I also feel blessed to have no reason to venture back out on the roads for a couple of days. Sandyz
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