It’s beginning to look a lot like a mess

Everyone and their cat is blogging away about it, but snow is rare in Vancouver. Compared to growing up in Iowa, whiteness is something that you learn to live with, but this “falling white death from the sky”, as my high school physics teacher from Florida liked to call it, has completely caught me by surprise.

I’m actually surprised to not hear more about accidents on the roads, but folks on the lower mainland might have opted to stay off them as much as possible. That hasn’t stopped me from spotting a few horrible drivers in the downtown area. One should understand that when snow falls, the roads get slick. When the roads are slick, you can’t drive like you usually do. You can’t do quick acceleration and stop quickly when coming to an intersection. The laws of common sense tell you that you’re stupid if you try. And just because you own a Jeep or Hummer, that does not make you invincible.

I did witness a pretty bad fender bender on Saturday night. I was walking along Georgia and caught a minivan-taxi run into the back of a fellow car-taxi. It all happened in my peripheral vision, but I caught all the plastic pieces falling to the ground after the initial crunch. This is what happens when the light turns red and you don’t give yourself enough space for the car ahead of you to stop. I was in a hurry to meet Rebecca at the SkyTrain station but made sure everyone was alright before I went on my way.

The lack of snow removal really shows how unusual this weather is to this area. Earlier today, I watched one of the maintenance guys from our building clear the sidewalk. He was using a dust pan that was duct taped to a pole. It didn’t look pretty, but all that matters is that it worked.

Running an errand today, I wandered around the west end and Robson with my camera for a bit[flickr]. Snow removal on the sidewalks was spotty. That’s a little unheard of back in my home state, and Rebecca noted that during her time in Boston, sidewalks were cleared of snow on a constant basis. Like I said, snow is unusual here, especially in the downtown core. However, this stuff is going to stick around for a few days. It’s only going to get colder before it warms up enough to melt it all away.

Truthfully, I’m not complaining. I love snow. I love to throw snowballs and go sledding. Sadly, there’s not too many places to do that nearby. It’s only been in the last hour that the snow has really stopped. My hope is to do a bit of running tomorrow. Jogging through the snow is tricky. It is more of a workout and requires a little more concentration. It’s fun, too.