Kelly and I managed to hack our way out of our driveway this afternoon, after sleeping until about noonish. This snow was an interesting one, as the initial layer (5 or 6 inches) were of sleet, the size and granularity of a snow-cone. The last 2 or 3 inches were of powdery regular snow. This combination allowed one to actually walk on the snow without it caving it around your feet, which in itself is pretty cool, but trying to shovel that stuff was a two person job! Kelly would break up the snow with a spade and I would shovel it off the drive. All in all, I estimate we shovelled somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 cubic feet of snow today.

After about 2 hours of that, we retired in-side and promptly took naps. Arising about 5ish, we headed out to get me some new gloves (and to survey the quality of our roads), get a bite to eat and get some cocoa. All were done in a timely fashion, and as you can see in the middle photo above, some folks don’t respect mother nature. Or, perhaps, got real drunk and slid down a 15 foot tall embankment into a drainage ditch. We, however, stayed inside the ruts and managed to get out and back with no troubles.

Now to watch Return of the King and quaff cocoa!

More photos in the 2004.12.22 – Snowstorm gallery.