Hi-Ho-Ho-Ho, It's Off to Work I Go

Updating: it's Wed morning and about twice as much snow has fallen than what fell Monday. Roads are not just closed but not likely to reopen any time soon: schools and businesses are shut tight, too. There is a call out for any construction company with heavy equipment to assist in clearing the roadways as the desert isn't prepared for this sort of weather. The ski area up the hill has had record amounts of snowfall, and it's their spill-over that comes down the mountain and blitzes both Morongo Valley and Yucca Valley. Again, it's nice and clear at the college.

A bit of a problem has developed as this is final's week -- and not only cannot teachers get to work, but neither can students. Interesting situation. I'm just calculating grades based on where we all were last week and making the best of the situation. Life does what it does, so we best learn how to cope.

Where I am, it's been raining since the middle of the night and doesn't look like it's going to slow down one bit for a while. I've been baking cookies to take to work tomorrow -- or not, depending on the roads -- and laughing at Mia, who refuses to go outside and get wet. Whatever. I have 3 movies in reserve for a rainy day, so looks like I'm going to enjoy these few days of totally unseasonal weather!

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It is amazing how much snow can fall in a short 6 hours! I drove up the hill to teach classes today and, starting where I turned around yesterday all the way to OWS road in the middle of YV, there was snow, snow, and more snow. Although the highway was (mostly) plowed, the side streets were strewn with cars abandoned by drivers who pulled off during the snow storm and then could not extricate their wheels from the white stuff.

I'm guessing that about 5-6" fell during the storm in a wide swath of deep snow that came down from the mountains, as well as across the open desert. We shared snow with Las Vegas, which is (kinda) on the other side of a big expanse of open desert that we cut across diagonally when we drive to Sin City for guilty adult pleasures once in a while. If you think of a huge bowl rimmed by mountains, the bowl filled with whipped creme yesterday, cold whipped creme.

A colleague and her husband drove up to Pi Town, which is nestled in the lowest of the foothills, and they said there are feet of snow, not mere inches. They played in it for a bit, then headed back to civilization as they were worried about ice on the back roads.

Although I tried to resist twitting the office staff who absolutely did not believe me when I called from the road yesterday and said I could not make it to work, I casually stopped in and both of them burst out laughing. They knew that I knew that they did not believe my "snow" story, especially since once of them lives in the small hamlet where I first encountered the snow. When she left for work, a couple of hours before I left my domicile, it was just raining, and with the clear, sunny skies at the college, it did not compute that between the 2 of us could be a blizzard.

She did find out when she tried to get home last night that I was NOT snowing them to avoid working yesterday.

Sorry, no pictures, but there were tons of them in the local newspaper this morning. I didn't think to grab my camera before I left this morning, and I'm sure the snow will melt by tomorrow -- but we are expecting at least one, and probably two, more storms to come through by Sunday. When I drove past the time/temp sign in YV this evening, it was 40 degrees and temps are expected to go lower overnight.

We may not have a white Christmas, but it's pretty sure we're going to have a wet one.