What a Difference 24 Hours Makes

Wednesday morning we didn’t have water, I was worried about losing power again, and I couldn’t get out of my driveway due to all the snow.

Thursday, just after breakfast, our water returned. I checked the kitchen faucet around 8am and was getting a trickle, which was more than we’d had since Tuesday. Excitedly, I filled an empty gallon water jug with water (it took about 7 minutes to fill) and set it aside. When I checked the faucet again around 9:30am, our water pressure was back to about 75% normal. A couple of hours later, it was back to 100%. I waited until bedtime last night to dump out my multiple tubs in the living room of melted snow, just to be sure.

The rolling blackouts have not been an issue since Tuesday. Less electricity for Texas means more for Oklahoma, I guess.

My final challenge of the day was getting one of the three cars in my driveway free. As I previously said, trapping my truck in between two cars was a monumentally bad decision for two reasons. First, because the other two cars couldn’t get out, neither could the truck. And second, the snow formed tall drifts between the cars, essentially building a wall of snow around the truck. Live and learn.

Previous attempts at getting my Ford Flex down the driveway were unsuccessful. The snow was as high as my bumper in some spots. Moving the Honda, with snow all the way up to the hood, was out of the question. I knew the only way I was getting down that snow-packed driveway was in my ironically named Avalanche.

Freeing the truck was a lot like one of those sliding tile puzzles. First, I had to get the Flex out of the way, which I did by running it into a deep section of snow on the side of the driveway. It’ll be stuck there for days, but that’s okay. Next, I used a snow shovel to hack away half of the snow drift that was blocking the truck in place. I then inch-wormed the truck to the left one inch at a time by backing up three feet, turning the wheels, going forward three feet, and so on. After what seemed like a hundred times, I had the truck far enough to the left that I could pull the front end into my workshop. With that extra bit of space, I was able to turn the wheels enough to squeeze back in between the other two cars and start down the driveway. Every ten feet or so when I hit another drift, I’d get out and shovel some more. Once I got two-thirds down the driveway, the snow wasn’t so deep. With the traction control system turned off and a heavy foot, I spun my way out into the street.

Thirty minutes later, I surprised Morgan with an order of Chicken McNuggets for lunch. I don’t know that hot McDonald’s fries have ever tasted quite so good.