What an adventure Ben and I have had these past few days. Portland is experiencing record levels of snow fall – and it just keeps coming, plugging up all major forms of transportation because no one is prepared for it. Typically, we get snow once a year. It’s usually fairly light and melts off in a few days. This series of storms, which started last Sunday 12/14 and the news channels have appropriately dubbed “Arctic Blast”, have dumped the most snow on the city that we’ve seen in 40 years, and to top it off temperatures are not going above freezing so it isn’t melting off. Consequently, buses aren’t going any where, the MAX is having trouble keeping at regular intervals, and 300 people are sleeping at the airport because flights aren’t leaving. For Ben and me, that means our flight on Saturday evening to Los Angeles was canceled and rebooked for Monday. The rebooked flight was canceled and we were scheduled on another flight to leave 12/24. Hopefully our flight on the 24th will leave like it is supposed to. Honestly I’m too tired at this point to think of any alternatives.
In the mean time here are some lovely pictures of the snow.
Ben & Cleo in the snow 12/14
Our yard gnome in the snow 12/17
We didn’t find out that our original flight out was canceled until after we had trudged through the few inches of snow that had already accumulated taking the bus and the MAX to get to the air port hoping that they were equipped to deal with the snow. After we checked through security we went to find the gate we were supposed to fly out of and saw that all of Southwest‘s flights had been canceled for the day (and every day until today).
After rebooking our flight and finding out that they just didn’t have enough de-icing equipment to deal with the weather we sat down to have lunch in the airport before attempting to head back home. When we got down to the MAX line that runs from the airport we found that it wasn’t running because a switch was frozen at a transit center three stops up the line and they were attempting to remedy it with blow torches. After the MAX got up and running we got to the stop we need and waited in blowing snow neither of us dressed appropriately for the weather we were encountering.
Finally when we got on the bus trying to get closer to home we encountered several more problems including the bus we were on ending up in a snow drift and unable to get out forcing all of the passengers to sit and wait for another bus to come along and rescue us. Another bus came along shortly after and we all climbed on and silently prayed that it would get us that much closer to our destinations. Finally Ben and I got to the stop and began to trudge the half mile from the stop to our home in blowing snow, no where near appropriately dressed. After a three hour journey we finally arrive home, still intact, and luggage in tow. We’re thankful for being able to get home, but are sad that our trip to visit Los Angeles is so delayed.
Here are some more pictures we too on our trip to the grocery store yesterday during a lull in the storm.
Our home covered in snow 12/22
Emilie on the street in front of the house 12/22
