Ice Day

On Friday, January 11th, we woke up to a whole lot of snow!  The phone rang at 6:00 in the morning, telling us that Davis School district had cancelled school for the day.  Hooray! (Of course, by Utah state law, they have to make it up later, but at least their lives won't be at risk when they do).  As we  watched news coverage of the roads, I became more and more nervous for David's safety.  This was one day when you did NOT want your husband to be driving from house to house all day!  The news reporters were telling everyone that due to accidents and slick roads, they should plan on adding one or two hours to their commute.  Yikes!

About the time I was ready to have a panic attack, Dave got a text message from his supervisor.  It said, "Due to road conditions, we want you to cancel ALL unnecessary visits.  If you nurses have to do dialysis for a patient, do it, but nothing else."  Whew!   I felt so much better.  What a great job David has!  How many employers would do that?  Dave, on the other hand, had a hard time just staying home and getting paid for nothing.  He felt really strange about it - he hated cancelling appointments, even though no body made a fuss when he did. 

Don't worry, Dave got over his anxiety and had a great day of reading by the fireside.  We all just kind of hunkered down and kept warm all day.  It was great to have a family-wide snow day.

 

Just hanging out on the computer, in front of the TV or with a good book for most of the day...
 

 

Later in January, we had some seriously dangerous weather.  First, the temps went super low, killing several birds throughout the area.  Then, on the 24th, Utah had a full-blown ice storm. It was dangerously slick everywhere! Rain was falling from the sky and instantly freezing on people's windshields. The freeway was a huge mess of car accidents. It was intense!  David went to work that day, but cancelled his first visit in South Salt Lake.  I made him drive the van because it has better snow tires on it.  He said that the roads weren't actually too bad because crews were out working on them, but getting from his car to the front door of each of his patients was literally life-threatening. I believe him. I've never been on such slick ice before!  And everywhere was like that - there was NOTHING to grip on to anywhere!  We couldn't get our car up the driveway, people were falling all over the place (I guess Dave's work will be busy for a while) and the police even called our house telling us to stay indoors unless there was an emergency.  My poor brother-in-law is a mail man and he said that at one house, he slipped and he had to crawl for 25 yards until he could find something to pull himself up with.  By the afternoon, even the post office called in its workers, regardless of whether the mail was delivered or not.  Wow! 

The next day was only slightly better.  Davis School District called a late start that morning, but since Fridays are early-out days, I kept the girls home all day.  I wasn't going to brave the roads just so that they could eat lunch at school and come home again. 

What an adventure!  We asked Dave's parents how people braved the ice storms in Oklahoma City and they said, "Easy - you just shut everything down.  No body goes anywhere for a while."  I can see why!