Inclement weather

I've spent a significant portion of my life in regions that see significant amounts of winter snowfall. Oregon is supposedly an exception to that. I say supposedly, because everyone around here adamantly insists that snow in Oregon is indeed anomalous. This means after a dusting of the white stuff, the roads will go uncleared for days because there are no snowplows to be found, black ice inevitably forms everywhere, offices close, commerce grinds to a standstill, and people hunker down in their houses fervently awaiting the return of what is not anomalous around here: rain. I must say, though I have only lived in Oregon for a little more than two years, there have been crippling snowstorms each winter, which leaves me wondering why people haven't yet learned to deal with it. At any rate, since it is a Saturday and I really don't have anywhere to be, I decided to join the ranks of the stay-at-homers and hum "Let it snow." I'm now a week into my Christmas vacation, and life is extremely good. Scott and I took a trip to the coast last weekend for our second anniversary, and I must say it was an amazingly efficient way to bring my brain back to normal functioning after exams. We stayed at a great oceanfront hotel, visited a great old lighthouse, did a little whale watching, sampled the local fare, and strolled snow covered beaches without a care in the world. It was fantastic. When it was time to make the trek home, the weather was clear, but the roads were significantly less so. It was pretty much a sheet of ice the entire way, and when you combine that with people who aren't accustomed to driving in the snow, bad things happen. As we were driving along, the car in front of us slammed his breaks as a random group of people inexplicably ran across the highway. Scott tried to brake, but we didn’t stop. As I said we were going to crash, Scott veered right, and we went off the side of the road. It was quite the excitement. Actually, just the front tires went off the road, and the rest of the car was perched precariously on the top of an embankment. The same group that caused the near accident came over to help us push our car back on the road, and when we were able to get moving again, we saw that the reason all those people were just chilling on the road was because their two cars had gone completely off the highway into a ditch, and they were either waiting for help, or trying to get as many other people to feel their pain. Like I said, you would think that people would figure out how to drive in the snow, seeing as how it snows at least once every year, but sadly it's not a skill everyone can master. That's definitely why I'm going to spend this snow day inside.