The school district my wife and I work for had three days off last week. They were all unplanned and due to inclement weather. We still call them snow days even though it could be any combination (or not) of snow, ice, or excessively cold temperatures.
There are a couple of drawbacks to these days. While my wife gets to stay home and relax, I still have to report to work. In addition to that, we usually don't get the call that school is cancelled until 5:00 AM. Since we get up at 4:00 AM to exercise, it can be tough to go back to bed once you get the call.
It all started on Tuesday. They were calling for a freezing mix of rain and snow all through the day. There was a pretty significant system pushing through and the temps were supposed to be hovering right around the freezing mark. Although the drive in wasn't too bad, they cancelled school anyway just to be safe since there was no guarantee what the rest of the day would bring.
As you can see above, by the time I walked out of my office, there was quite a bit of ice accumulating. This was around 2:00 PM.
We actually got the call that school was cancelled on Tuesday night for Wednesday. We had gotten all that rain through the day and it was supposed to drop down to 17 degrees Fahrenheit overnight. That meant all the water that wasn't already would soon become ice.
I ended up staying home on Wednesday since I had a webinar most of the day that I could do from anywhere. It was nice to sleep in!
Thursday we had school, but since the temps hadn't gone up at all, things were still covered in ice. These are some trees at the gas station. It is a bit hard to tell, but they are coated in ice and it was quite pretty.
Finally, there were these trees on my walk in to work on Thursday morning. I took them from the same vantage point but used two different modes on my phone. The first is just the standard mode. The second is using the Nightsight mode that is built into my One Plus smartphone.
I think I like the second one better because it shows a bit more detail.
I know @tattoodjay is pretty loose about the rules for #wednesdaywalk, but this seemed to fit perfectly because the walk from the car to my office is one that I take quite frequently. At least twice a day if not more sometimes.
As I got to my office door I turned around and took a couple more shots. Again the first is just regular and the second is with the nightsight mode. I honestly don't see much difference between these two. I think they both turned out pretty cool.
Friday we had another snow day but that was because we had about 4 inches of snow dumped on us in a short period right at the beginning of the day. It was a pretty fun drive in to work, nothing had been plowed yet (even the expressway), and there wasn't much traffic on the roads. I threw my truck into four wheel drive and blazed my own trail.
I kind of love driving when the conditions are like that. It makes me feel like skiers probably do when they encounter fresh powder. As long as you have a vehicle that sits high enough and has the capability to handle it, it isn't as intimidating as you would think.
Many school districts around us were closed from Tuesday through the rest of the week. The plow trucks were just too busy to get to the back roads and even if they could, many of those old country roads were virtually impassable anyway.
Last week could come back to bite them at the end of the school year. If you don't get enough hours of instruction in, you end up having to extend your calendar and go further into the summer. It will be pretty funny if our students get out and they still have to sit in class for two or three more days because of this.
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