My sister and her husband drove from CA & visited us for 42 hours. My brother-in-law is an accountant, so he has an annual work trip to Seattle that my sister accompanies him on. They drove the opposite trip Sasha & I just did, so I know how exhausted they must be. They arrived Thursday at about 9:00 pm, so we stayed up talking and drinking for a few hours. It snowed a tiny bit during the day, so we hoped that we would wake up to a nice blanket of the white stuff, but when I got up in the morning, it was sunny with only a trace of frozen snow kernels that fell during the night.I had to go in to work for a bit, but my plan was to get there about an hour earlier than usual to get the important stuff done so I could be home by 11 A.M. to get in some sister hang out time. I looked at a traffic website which showed the Interstate completely jammed, so I decided to take Highway 99. As soon as I got on the highway, it was backed up worse than I have ever seen it. I figured there must be snow up ahead, slowing things down. After 10 minutes of barely moving, I got the brilliant idea to sneak over to a side street. I was not the only one with this idea, because it was jammed up, too, but worse, because now we were getting to where there was more snowfall and everything was all slippery & scary. I guess there was some kind of freak blizzard in this 100-block radius, a rare event in this area.
After 45 minutes and only going about 40 blocks, I decided to head back up to the freeway where the streets were at least more drivable. I turned right on next major thoroughfare to the freeway, which was moving like a dead snail. There was a slight incline, which meant trouble in a snow situation in which no one knows how to drive. I start seeing abandoned busses littering the roadside. I look up ahead a block and see that a city bus was jackknifed in my lane and a big rig that tried to get around it jackknifed in the neighboring lane, completely blocking the access.
All in all it took me 2 hours to get to work, more than doubling my usual commute time. It was the worst kind of snow experience, because there was no enjoying its white beauty in the yard or getting to play in it as it fell. My sister did not even know it snowed until I got home, cursing a blue streak.
The rest of our visit was quite enjoyable and unmarred by any strange weather occurrences.