Observations on driving in Alaska winter wonderland!
I ventured out to the grocery store having put it off until today and the heavy snow-oh, well...life goes on in the winter in Alaska and that means snow. I figured I'd go to New Sogoya (I've been mis-spelling it in prior blogs) for groceries and then to Fred Myers for nongrocery items. The trip there wasn't too bad-got my groceries although I discovered the Natural Pantry had a better selection at less cost. By the time I got back to my car it was fairly buried in snow-get the scraper/brush out and brush it off, oh yeah, don't turn on the windshield wipers with the door on unless you are ready to have all the snow dumped into the car! Sit, sit, sit waiting for the defroster to do it's thing so I can see (at least momentarily) where I am going. Now, it's getting a little dicey and this southern girl wishes she'd stayed home-yep, Fred Myers is out for today! The problem being that apparently Alaksa does not have snow plows....or maybe they just don't work on Sunday???? I survived a winter in Iowa but they had snow plows always busy, very busy, plowing the roads. Do Alaskans consider themselves too hardy for snow plows? With millions of dollars in campaign money for the state representative coming from Pine Bluff, Arkansas is all the money for snow plows going to Arkansas??? What's the deal here??? No wonder I see so many trucks and SUVs with snow plows attached to the front-they have to do it themselves? In fact, the picture above is in the parking lot of the apt-the super or someone who works for the apt is plowing the parking lot. It lasts than 15 minutes before the parking lot is covered again! I wonder how often he does this in a day or is it a one time chore-might as well not do it in that case!
About the driving part-visibility is an issue in many ways! With no snow plows I can't tell where the lanes are, where the medians are, where the curbs are.... Stopping seems to go pretty well but I have trouble starting up again at a light or stop sign without a little spinning and shimming-and, yes, mother...I am going slow! Most people are very careful-I had one person pull-very slowly and very carefully-right out in front of me! The exceptions seem to be people driving trucks and SUVs-some of them drive like idiots! They drive considerably faster than the rest of us and somewhat recklessly-one was in the left turn lane and when the light turned green pulled out and crossed over in front of me to go straight!! Note: this is not all trucks and SUVs-but the stupid ones seem to be driving those vehicles...maybe they feel invincible...maybe that's why most of the wrecks I've seen reported on TV have been trucks and SUVs!
Jane says she's calling me to see if I change my mind about going to walk and soak in the hot tub at 1pm-she'll drive! I'm thinking doing laundry and cleaning house is looking pretty good right now-if only I hadn't run out of knitting thread for my scarf I could be really happy right here!
PS....While I was writing this the parking lot was buried again and now there is a little bobcat with a front end loader out there scraping the snow up. Look at this lady across the way-she's in a pickle-real glad my car is parked in a heated garage!