Winter Storm 2.0: Revenge of the Groundhog

I mentioned recently I was over winter right?! We finally get out of the last storm to have another one come barreling through and leaving us with some sincerely scary amounts of ice and slush. These are some of the pictures from the neighborhood today. I'm not venturing much farther than my driveway right now. It's not super awesome out there at all!  Luna isn't much impressed by it all either. Shes really not a fan when we open the door and tell her it's time for her to go potty; the look on her face is really priceless as she stops and stares.The most unnerving thing though is the eerie silence since no one is driving. I'm not a big fan of that silence as it's unusual to hear nothing for long periods of time. I decided I'm quitting and moving to someplace warmer because this winter stuff is the reason I live in Georgia. Sure I'm good with the odd cold snap here and there, but I live in Georgia because I don't want to have to salt my walk or worry about snow tires and ice and all the trappings of winter junk. It's not my favorite thing at all. Not. At. All.

Georgia is closed until further notice...

Beginning of my 8.5 hour trek home :(

 I was over winter before the storm hit two weeks ago, but the storm fully cemented my desire for winter to be a distant memory. The storm sorta took us by surprise I will say. We were still wrapped up in Toddy's passing to really think about much else so when we got home Monday evening we knew there was snow coming, we just didn't know how much. Off we all trekked on Tuesday to work knowing we were getting snow, but not that we were going to be blanketed in a not so awesome ice blanket. It started out as just some flurries around 10:15ish in the morning, but by 11 we started understanding this wasn't the dusting they anticipated. By about noon it seemed to be all she wrote and it honestly went down hill from there. I got released from work at 1 and reluctantly got in my car and headed home.

Icicles formed as we were all driving

I've never really been a huge fan of driving in rainy weather so driving in this junk wasn't high on my list of things I really wanted to do. Plus let's be honest Hugo isn't exactly built for this kinda weather. Love my car but it's not exactly built for snowy and icy roads. Setting out I can say I didn't foresee it taking over 8 hours to get home, but in the end it did. I regretted the decision I had earlier made to bring the jumbo sized drink from Chick Fil A home to keep me company on the drive home, especially when I had to park my car and hoof it to the Walgreen's because the parking lot was both full and blocked by cars who couldn't make it up the hills. I never really thought of how hilly it was to get home until I watched people struggle to get up the smallest of hills. My faithful Hugo though made it up the scariest of hills and back down them with an ease which really scared me at first but was comforting in the end.

The roads in the neighborhood.

In the end though I had to park Hugo about a mile from the house because the last hill I needed to make it up thwarted my little car that could. To be fair it's a relatively steep hill with a curve to it so it really sucks. Thank the heavens for the group of guys who were helping cars up the hill. One of them actually got my car parked by going up backwards, thanks Mythbusters for the tip! The walk home was terribly cold but I was happy to be home after my eight and half hour drive home. The day evolved into a major ball of stress trying to make sure everyone was home and safe. We ended up scattered around different places, but thankfully we were all safe and sound in the end and we all managed to make it to our homes the next day. We were luckier than others and for that I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father. There were many pleas and prayers offered up during the drive by not only myself but I'm sure by all the others on the drive home.