It seems like it's getting harder and harder to rely on the forecast being accurate anymore as most of them seem to be over hyped or sensationalized for ratings, heck we even give the big storms names now so we can hash tag the crap out of them. Anyway, erring on the side of caution most schools, businesses and local governments announced they would be closed before a single flake flew. I went to bed and there was still nothing on the ground, so I figured my employer would be open on Tuesday and planned accordingly. Woke up at 3:30 because nature called and still nada, so I was a little surprised when I woke at 5:30 and saw this on the ground... not life threatening totals but it was coming down fast.
Like a diligent employee I called the weather closing number at the predetermined time to see if the offices would be closed, according to the message they would in fact be open on Tuesday. With that possibility in mind the night before I had decided that unless I couldn't see the handicapped sign in the previous picture or it was on it's side because of the wind I was going to ride the Pugsley into work and avoid an impromptu game of bumper cars with any fellow commuters who had lost their ability to drive. The Pugs performed admirably and I was able to plow over or through anything that got in the way, being a wet snow the going was a bit more arduous and time consuming than my normal commute but only by about 7 minutes as far as time goes. Not surprisingly, with most of Omaha closed, there weren't a whole lot of vehicles on the road but those that were gave me plenty of space when passing... some maybe being a bit too cautious as I had one guy completely stop until I passed him even though there was plenty of room between us and he was going the opposite direction in the opposite lane of travel. Maybe he was just so flabbergasted that someone was out riding that he froze. I did manage to make it safely to work and got all changed over and was preparing to get down to brass tacks when they announced that we were closing and that everyone should head home. DOH! Since I had literally just changed into "regular" clothes, the fact that my biking stuff was still moist from riding in and because Tyler offered; I threw the Pugs in the back of his Jeep and got a ride home, successfully completing the Asian-American Emergency Preparedness exercise for the day.
Once back at home I fired up the laptop and got onto the VPN and did a little work but without anyone at work to have issues it didn't take too long to exhaust both my desire to stare at a computer screen and the amount of meaningful tasks I had to do. I decided that OSHA would be fine with me taking a little break so I brought the Pugsley back out for round two at about 1:30-2 o'clock, I was hoping to find some snowy side roads to romp around on but those pesky plows were too efficient and all of the side roads in my hood were already plowed and mostly melted down to the pavement.
The neighborhood park was all I could find in the local vicinity as far as snow in abundance went that nobody would complain about if I rode on it and broke fresh tracks. With 6" of fresh wet snow the going was not quick but as long as you kept spinning, you kept moving. If you had to stop though you were walking as it was near impossible to get started again unless you could find a track to start in. About a half hour of riding around in circle in the park the effort to fun ratio quickly eroded the fun factor to a point where I decided to head home and call it a day.
Hopefully everyone else survived the snowpocalpyse and maybe even got out and enjoyed it as well, the temps were pretty nice once it stopped snowing and it turned out to be a really nice day.
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