Well, by the time I woke up this morning, all the snow had turned to ice. It’s the way of things in the desert. The soft, almost eerie smoosh of powder under your feet was replaced with a very loud and terrible crunch. The cars rolling by on the street crunched even louder with every inch as they made their way past my house in the morning. Yay, ice on the road.

Not a big deal to you New Englanders, or basically anyone from outside the tropics or the desert. But, to desert dwellers, it’s as foreign as if someone paved the road with glass. I have some experience driving in the snow. Driving the 95 in Virginia… in a Fiero… Yeah, those were the days. Or goin balls to the wall down a backroad only to find the curve is much sharper than you expected. As you sit there in your car — stalled out next to a tree in some stranger’s yard — you get a new appreciation for winter driving. The thing about that happening in Virginia was I was the guy who needed to get the experience. A member of the vast minority in that region who’d never been lucky enough to drive in the snow.

Now, imagine being the other guy. The guy who knows how to drive in the snow. No problem, right? Well, the problem is here in the desert if you are the guy who knows how to drive in the snow, you are still in the vast minority. Which means the vast majority are the guys and gals goin balls to the wall down that backroad about to hit that sharp turn. A whole city full of people who really should be locked inside their homes if it is icy out. I just flipped on Diggnation on my iPod and hit the road. Diggnation, by the way, is a flat out awesome cast! You guys rock!

To everyone’s credit, there were no accidents on the way to work this morning. It did take twice as long to get there, but still, no fender benders or anything like that. Which is saying a lot considering how many of us were on the road. That wasn’t a statement which could be said long, however, because the pileups started right about after I got to work. All in all, pretty uneventful. It’s supposed to be even colder tonight. Here’s hoping it doesn’t snow again!

Ok, here’s the view from my house this morning:

Here’s a view of the Boneyard on my way to work:

Finally here’s a couple of soccer moms trying to find the lines in the road: