Snow, I Actually Missed You

Ahhh, we are home safely from a holiday visit with family and friends. It's great to get time away and spend it with loved ones. It's also great to be back home and back into our daily routine, which means back to blogging.

We went to Portage and then to GPW. Mike, Bits, and I checked out the lights in downtown Kzoo. We played with no less than 4 dogs at Mike's family's home, and caught up on the shopping at countless stores and eating at various fooderies that don't exist in our part of the U.P.. Monday gave us a Merry Lake get together with extended family. We came back from our visits with too many gifts to fit the Jeep, and ate so much home cooked goodness (and chocolate), I'm sure my pants were about to bust like the cartop carrier.

Our drive back was long and snow filled. At Munising, we had to call it a night thanks to blizzard like conditions. Bits didn't seem to mind the hotel room one bit. We continued on the next day, hitting a good number of whiteouts by Marquette. It was pretty clear for the remainder of the drive and having calmed down from the scary conditions the night before, I enjoyed looking at all the snow covered trees and ground. Upon getting home, we found our mailbox missing and the driveway filled with about a foot and a half of the white stuff, and I don't mean fluffer-nutter.

Mike dug out the end of the plowed in driveway and then tried to kick the Jeep into 4-wheel, only to find ourselves stuck and gears grinding. We were sure we broke something. Mike kept himself amazingly calm (so calm, I thought he was having a breakdown), and made some phone calls about our warranty. I dug a path to the Jeep and started the process of unloading all the goods.

Just when I was accepting the tedious situation, our neighbor came by on his white horse (which looked an awful lot like an orange industrial snow blower). He helped clear out our drive and walkways and checked out the Jeep and got it moving again. What we would do without our neighbors, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the Jeep would still be stuck at the end of the driveway, and I'd still be shoveling this morning.