Snow

                                 Pictures taken from the front of my son's house in Calgary


When the snow falls, it changes the atmosphere and energy of your surroundings. Even the acoustics change. It just feels so different!

I mean, besides being FREEZING COLD, there's this strange new feeling introduced into every day living. And there's piles and piles of white stuff suddenly in the way, on your car, all over your back porch, under your tires and accumulating on everything.

Unlike what I have seen in the past in Ontario, the highways here in the Calgary area are thick with a deep layer of snow and where the snow has been pressed down, a thick layer of ice. This is actually something I didn't see in Ontario during the winter. The highways there were hastily cleared with ploughs that also put down a layer of gravel and that quite effectively.

Now, whether the snow was just falling too quickly to be cleared away fast enough, I don't know but I have been told that the snow ploughs don't even enter the residential neighbourhoods! How odd.

So, how does this affect driving?

In one trip to church and back, I saw half a dozen cars pulled over and several collisions. And backed up traffic.

My son said,
"You have to drive as though you have no brakes, because you actually don't. If you step on the brake, you'll slide sideways, so instead of using your brake, you just gear down."

It seemed some people were not aware that they had to keep a greater distance from the car in front of them and so, as we saw, there were rear-enders going on.

Sunday, the snow came down constantly all day long! I started thinking it would be easier to drive a snowmobile on the highway than a car. And,  four-wheel-drive would be a great help.