Monday's are getting more and more difficult for me to negotiate unless I do major pre-Monday morning preparations. The snow had been falling all day Sunday. I had actually been out earlier in the day and shoveled the ramp with the help of my neighbor. But the snow continued to fall not heavenly, just steadily but there were hours during the fall I would characterize as “heavy”. Either way I had Dianne drive me up to the train station—I could never had made the trip up to the train station myself. In fact when I did get to the Planetarium Station ( downtown Salt Lake) I got stuck in the snow no less then three times. The environment this morning was deadly downtown. Street were being plowed huge city dump trucks throwing literally tons of snow, slush and grunge into huge “rooster tails) clearing the streets but plugging up the curb cuts to thew sidewalk till the next thaw. Even at this point even if I cold gotten onto the sidewalk I still would have been stranded since no sidewalks had been cleared this morning in Murray or downtown Salt Lake.
The Planetarium Station basically off loads its folks in the middle of the block in the middle of the street. The transit customer (me) then has to cross a set of railroad(Trax tracks) to the cross a street to get to the sidewalk. This morning there was so much snow on the railroad tracks I had to cross I got immediately stuck right on the center of the tracks—luckily there was not a training coming but one would be coming very shortly. Luckily for me there was a good Samaritan who pushed me over the tacks and out onto the street which I crossed but then dove feet first int the pile of snow in the access cut away to th sidewalk and again luckily for me the same Samaritan was still somewhere behind me and pushed me up to the sidewalk which luckily had been snow-blown and I was OK till I got to the intersection across from my office where again there were mounds of snow. I knew there was no way I was going to get through the snow drifts filling the curb cuts...however I did notice the intersection crossing the street the other way had less snow in the curb-cut do to more homeless has crossed making their way to the shelter and morning breakfast. I got out onto th street where the plows have been clearing, I watched the traffic closely and when the lights turned sprinted in my chair, fish tailing all the way to the other side and there as the same problem. There was no way I was going to be able to break the snow piled in curb cut but if I could travel up the street to the, IN THER STREET I could get to the drive way to the sidewalk in front of the office and get to my place of work. Luckily it was five minutes to 7:00 a.m. And there still was not a morning rush, for a host of reasons, so if I watched the lights again and waited I should be OK,. I waited like a sprinter waiting for the starters pistol to sound, a couple of stacks of cars passed and then came a significant break in traffic and off I went almost spinning a dough nut and fish tailing, again like a crazy man. I made it but had to pull up short, again because if the amount of snow and I piled in the curb cut and realized even if I could access side walk it would do no good since the sidewalk to our office which sits sort of in the middle of the block had not been cleared-there was snow way I was going to break that kind of snow—but if I could stay in the street and roll down the center of that street I could make it to the driveway. Again I had to watch the lights sand wait for the cars to pass and at the right time I sprinted hoping if a vehicle did appear behind me they would see the reflective eyes on the back of the chair.
The break in traffic came and I was off. I came up to the drive way say lot of the snow had been mashed down from early arrivers but there was still quite a lot of snow which not but if I could hit the drive at full speed I could do it. I did it. I hit the driveway full blast. I rattled my teeth but survived the bump, stayed in my chair and made it to dry sidewalk.. I made it—I was a couple of minutes late but into to work. I should be OK going home..There is a jazz game tonight and people look to have been working on the walks all day—Dianne said she would pick me up at the station tonight and no more snow I forecast for th rest of the week—now to survive the cold....
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