Oregon has many different road lines. There are standard dashes, single lines, double lines, double lines embedded with bumps, double lines with dashes in the middle, double lines with dots in the middle, and on some stretches of road, no line at all. Lines do not matter when the road is covered with snow.
Snow is very beautiful and fun until it covers the roads. Then it becomes a bit stressful and difficult. Snow is preferable to ice.
An entire car encased in ice looks pretty cool, but takes about half an hour, a lot of heat, and an ice scraper to de-ice. I say "ice pick" instead of "ice scraper" pretty much every time I have to use the term. Which is almost never, but was quite often last weekend.
When driving around on snowy, ice roads in a city that doesn't get snowy on a regular basis (like once every 40 years) and when everyone else also doesn't really know how to drive in snow, it gets very surreal. Lanes are completely irrelevant. Cars float around and often slip and slide until they can get traction again. And the cars behind are not bothered, they just peacefully wait until everything is settled and straightened out and then get going again. On the freeway. It's like a huge ice rink for cars.
Snow storms in not-snowy places brings out all the Mid-Westerners and their snow shovels. It also brings out a few perplexing and grumpy folks who mutter things like "hrrmph, can't you drive in snow?" But all the temperate-climate-dwellers who can't drive in snow and all the Mid-Westerners-turned-heroes for owning snow shovels and imparting wisdoms like "turn into the spin" are full of good feelings toward their neighbors.
Thank you, awesome guy working at the nursery (i think?) in North-Eastern Portland who helped us dig our car out of the snowdrift that we had idiotically parked in. It was really quite an experience for us Californians.
The best place to go when everything is snowy is a bookstore. The most awesome bookstore ever is Powell's. We had to drive into Portland to get there, and the car got stuck in an intersection a couple of blocks away (stupid snowplow) but it was so worth it. And now my sister gets a Family Circus book for Christmas, which is her absolute favorite. (Not a completely true statement.)
Oh my gosh snow is cold. And make my nose run. Hot, spicy apple cider is delicious, and also makes my nose run. Thank you family of friend that we were visiting. You are awesome and make delicious foodstuffs. Amazing lentil soup. I always focus on the edibles, but the conversation and the company was fantastic as well.
Vodka doesn't make my nose run, but it makes me warm and drunk. Thank you former teacher who, despite having been prepared, really amazed all the people I dragged with me. They were pretty surprised that your toast involved the words "fuck" and "your mother." The herring was delicious, although I suspect you have to have a genetic predisposition in order to enjoy it. My grandfather once ate fish for every meal while we were in Germany during herring season. I have good genes. Or at least fishy ones.
And it was fantastic to just be stranded in Tigard with a bunch of nice folks. I like hanging out with people who still think it's cool to give everyone nicknames. Co-Ho, you totally snore, I can't believe you ever tried to insist otherwise. Actually, we all snore, but the rest of us don't try to lie about it.
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