Yesterday we ended up traveling home in the storm,
which wasn't too bad at this point, only problem was we were still forty miles away from home, that sits on top of a large rolling hill.
Things really got bad when we ended up in a line of traffic on a hill in the city for two hours. Eventually we made our way to the bottom of the hill, where each car was taking it's turn trying to get a run to make it up and over. Most ended up sideways in the snowbanks watching the rest take a turn. The upside was I had plenty of opportunities to take pictures. My son said this one looks like a Bob Ross painting from the classes on T.V.!
As the wind picked up we were informed by the weather band radio the wind was gusting to forty MPH, temperature was maintaining at 26 degrees and as we inched our way to the bottom of the hill with more than a bit of trepidation, we began to hear angry screaming.
Evidently the wait was too much to bear for a couple in a vehicle behind us, a woman hopped out yelling unspeakable things to the male driver and marched her way back down the road in eight inches of snow past the other waiting vehicles.
When our turn to give it a go arrived we headed up the hill like nobodies business. Until we hit the ice under the packed snow. Not less than five times did we try going up with the front wheel drive in the front. After sliding sideways halfway back down the hill more times than I care to recall, we resorted to old school. Turned the truck around and used the front wheel as rear wheel in reverse, and along with the traction control, inched our way up and over the top of the hill.
This was the view on the way down the other side.....
The flares are to keep vehicles from heading into the no man's land we had just made it through. On the way past the cop he asked how it "[was] on the other side."
We discovered how much snow had fallen on our hill upon arriving home.
More than a foot resting out of the wind on the bird bath.
The lilac tree in the back yard wasn't much better but its directly in the wind tunnel that blows over this hill.
I should have known today that I was extremely fortunate to have had the snowy road adventure and not to test my somewhat shaky-at-best luck today. But noooooooooo. I decided to bake.
My plans were chocolate chip cookies and whoopee pies. No big deal. Or so I thought.
No sooner were the chocolate chip cookies in the oven the son wanders through the kitchen and mumbles something about smelling something burning, better check the cookies...... I had just put them in. Have I failed to mention I still have plugged sinus'.........
Shortly thereafter the smoke alarm started screaming, the son was at the oven door yellin' "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!" and I was fighting off the other half racing toward the oven and my first batch of cookies with an ABC fire extinguisher. Turns out a bit of batter with a HUGE dark chocolate chip had fallen off the side of the cookie pan and landed on the element. No big deal. I remedied the situation , baked three batches of cookies moving on to the whoopee pies with almond cream cheese filling.
It was all good until the electric mixer started sounding a bit weird. Then it began to smoke, but I was determined to finish the batter. Things went down hill fast when flames started shooting out of the front grill of the blender.
Much like the vacuum cleaner many years before it, it was unplugged and flung out into a snowbank where it heaved it's last sizzle.
I managed to finish the filling with a whisk, let me advise against that.
The upside to the whole disaster is I have the perfect excuse to finally buy a KITCHEN ADE.
NEW YEARS EVE.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.
MUAH!
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