BLIZZARD!

Saturday we had our first blizzard here in North Dakota this winter. That same day we had a print sale at the studio where I make all of my prints. The combination didn't seem to work too well, even though the weather was fine up until 7pm when the sale ended. They started forecasting the storm late in the week and by Friday the grocery stores were filled with people stocking up on food, by some accounts mostly bread and milk.

My finace and I were going to stay in Fargo with some friends but were worried about our dog and cats so we decided to try to make it home. I was a bit hesitant about this at first but was pretty confident we could make it. We live on a farm about 35 miles west of Fargo, and the drive took us about an hour compared to the normal 30 minutes or so. Several times we ran into "white-out" conditions, for those of you who don't know what that is it's when all you can see in front of your car is the hood and if your lucky the line on the side or middle of the road. It's not fun, especially when there are semis and other vehicles on the road with you. Apparently that's the most common accident in a blizzard, being rear-ended. Fortunately that didn't happen and when we were feeling pretty good until we pulled in our driveway and found a 2-3 foot high x 4 foot long drift. We had two choice get out and walk from there or back up and try to ram through it. We chose the latter, which was quite fun! We made it through and were stuck here until this morning when a neighbor came with a tractor-snow blower and cleared out our yard.

It was actually pretty nice being stuck here for a few days. I made several trips outside to take photos during and after the storm and feel kind of refreshed. There isn't much to do when your stuck, so we got lots of rest and relaxation. It was kind of nice.