To preface, since I was born and raised in Hawai'i, I never had to deal with the snow. I never had to drive in it, never had to shovel my driveway, heat up my car before getting in...all those fun things that goes with living in a cold climate. But before you all feel like you want to kick my ass, I must disclose we did and still DO have mosquitos and rain. Prehistoric mosquitos that eat you alive, and lots and lots of rain. Not to mention the occasional hurricaine.
I never lived in snow until I moved to Colorado for college, and boy did I hate driving in the snow with the 'black ice'. So how fitting I've ended up in Arizona, where our winters are wonderful - as long as you are down south. Flagstaff though is another story.
We were finally able to go to our house in Flagstaff for the first time in about 6 weeks. With the holidays, we were visiting family around the U.S. so we didn't really have a free weekend to make the trip up here.
We were excited to see how much snow was still on the ground, since Flagstaff had gotten pounded with snow from 3 different storms in December and January. What I forgot to think about was how much snow had piled up in our driveway. That's right, as you snow-savvy citizens of the world know, if you don't shovel/plow your driveway, it keeps piling up and up and up! Not to mention the ice bank that forms where your driveway meets the street from the street plow.
There was about 3 feet of snow in our driveway. We sunk in to our knees trying to walk to the front door. After calling around, we did get a quote from someone who had to 'bring the bobcat and snow plows' out, which would cost us $900. Ha ha.
So we went to Sears and bought a snow plow. I told Mike he should plow neighbors' driveways in order to have the plow pay for itself. We got home, and after trudging through the snow again, i decided to shovel a walking path to the garage from the street where our car was. It would also serve as my exercise for the day. If you ever want a full-body workout, shovel snow that is 3 feet deep.
It took me about an hour but I managed to carve out a pretty good path. I had to break the ice with the snow pick we bought, and would shovel the snow out of the way. Pick, shovel, pick, shovel. Two separate men who were taking their daily walks (a lot of older people live up here and take daily walks) walked by and were so impressed that the wife was shoveling the driveway. One said he wished he had his camera so he could take a picture to show his wife my handiwork.
Mike then got out our brand-new Craftsman 26" snow plow (the last one in the store!) and plowed away until we could pull our car up in the driveway. Success!
I'll add some pictures shortly.
snow shoveling
