Sunday, January 26, 2025

Semi-Snowy

Slowly but surely the snow and ice that have been making my life miserable for the past two and a half weeks is going away. Yesterday it got up to 50° F, which felt wonderful. Although today was forecast to be 15° lower than that Hubby Tony and I decided it was warm enough to walk up to the grocery store and get a couple of things for dinner.

Because this area only has a big snow event every few years, my collection of winter weather gear isn't particularly robust, but my heavy coat, gloves, and a scarf around my neck turned out to be enough to keep me mostly warm. The weak link was my footwear. My feet slip around in my snow boots (so they aren't good for extensive walking), but my hiking boots are just water resistant (not waterproof).

Although Tony and I have been driving today's walking route on a regular basis it it harder to see details when you're tooling by at 35 miles per hour. We quickly found out that some of the sidewalks were perfectly clean and dry, while others were still snow or ice covered. Each intersection had a hump where the plows had pushed the snow they removed from the road. 

After almost slipping on some ice I learned to move over to the grass or step onto the street whenever the sidewalk looked dangerous. At intersections I paused to figuree out the best way to navigate the snow humps, which sometimes meant over and sometimes around.

By the time we got to the store my feet were cold and damp. To distract myself from thinking about it I watched the scenery as I passed, and tried to figure out why the snow had melted from some yards but not others.

On the way home it had warmed up enough that some of the snow was starting to melt. The forecast calls for above-freezing weather the next ten days, so hopefully my next walk to the grocery store will be on concrete-colored sidewalks.

Five years ago today: Permanent Address Finder

12 comments:

  1. Glad it is warming up for you take care! -Christine cmlk79.blogspot.com

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  2. Ice is the WORST. I hope it's all gone soon.

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  3. I wasn’t aware that Missouri had fairly mild winters. It’s like here. Every few years if the conditions are just right, we’ll have snow. It totally shuts down everything. It might last a couple of days and then it’s gone, making us all wanting just a little more! We’re still hoping for some snow this year!

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    1. When I was a child the area had substantially more snow, usually one or two good falls per year. Now, although there are usually minimal amounts each winter the heavy stuff bypasses.

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  4. I just give up on being fashionable now if we have snow or ice and put gallon ziplocks over tennis shoes, and extra large socks over the outside of that. The socks give me traction on ice.

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    1. I'd not heard of that idea, but it's a good one.

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  5. I like Strayer's method to put socks on over bagged up shoes to provide some traction. L.L. Bean has some stretchy foot-length banded cleats to put over shoes or boots. The cleats cut into the ice. I keep them in my trunk but used them about twice a year when walking to home health patients' houses. Stay safe! Olathe still has piles on intersection corners. Linda in Kansas

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    1. I haven't browsed through the L.L. Bean catalog in some time, so I'm off to see what all is there.

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  6. I chopped the rest of the ice of my driveway Saturday. Most of it was still firmly attached. Some of this junk may be around for another month.

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    1. A month or more, depending on how much sun an area gets.

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  7. I like for it to snow, but it doesn't take long for me to be tired of having to adjust life when dealing with the ice and such. This is the one year that I would be prepared for a snowy season. We went to Alaska last year and I had purchased the needed clothes and shoes for cold, wet weather. It sits in the closet and most likely will not be needed. Hope you get a good bit of sunshine to melt the stuff away... Be careful on those sidewalks..

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