Hooray for SNOW! :)

Snow - it has its good points and bad points. Right now, it's ALL GOOD! :)

Here's a little-known Rhode Island quirk - people PANIC when it snows! It all goes back to the Blizzard of '78, where people were stuck all over the state and it took days to get home. I'm sure that Ric can tell you stories, but I'll stop there because I just haven't bought into the "hype" - for anyone who lived through that blizzard, no flaming!!! I'll just delete your comments! hehe :)

Growing up in Utah meant that nothing was closed when it snowed, we all walked to school in it (YES, we REALLY did! That's what boots are for!) and life kept on going no matter what the weather. I can honestly remember maybe 2 or 3 snow days at the MOST in all my school years!

Rhode Island is a little different. If there's even a hint of something, people start to scramble for their milk and bread at the stores, pulling their kids out of school, closing things early, etc.

So we were expecting snow today - around 1:00 pm. On the radio at 9:00 am, they were already announcing "Operation Snowball" cancellations. Schools were letting kids out anywhere between noon and 1:30, which meant that parents had to leave work to get them. In addition to that, businesses were closing up shop so that everyone could get home.

Usually not a problem, BUT, the snow started EARLY! (Around 11:00 am) Now everyone starts to panic and leaves to get their kids, go home, etc. The problem with that was that because the entire state is on the roads, the plows can't get through, and there's literally grid lock EVERYWHERE!

It's all the news anchors talked about! The plows couldn't plow, the snow was coming down at about an inch an hour, and people were stuck for hours getting to where they were trying to go! In fact, one of the news reporters mentioned that it took him 5 hours to go from North Attleboro to Providence -- all of 10 miles!

Ric was supposed to leave for work around 3:00 pm - it took him a half hour to go what normally takes 3 minutes, and since he saw that everything was backed up, he turned around and it took another 1/2 hour to get home! He was planning to try again in a couple of hours, but after watching the news, realized that he'd just be spending the entire night on the road.

Soooo....why does this make me happy? Because he's HOME! Yipppeee! That means I have help with the kids tonight, we had dinner together, and we'll all go to sleep at a decent hour!

For tonight - I LOVE SNOW! :) (Tomorrow might be another story altogether...)