Some kind of out of the ordinary!

A TriMet bus drove down the street Sunday morning. Now, on the face of it, that statement smacks of ordinary. But, the street outside our apartment building, both of them in fact--we're on a corner--are not bus routes. However, in certain circumstances, bus routes change, circumstances like the snow that started falling about 7:30 a.m. in our neighborhood and across the city. A few hours later, many surface streets, highways, and interstates had become slippery, dangerous places to be. So, although TriMet had chained up all of its buses, someone must have made the decision to not try to make it over the 900-foot, curvy road that Burnside becomes right after our neighborhood. That's what I'm assuming anyway, although I couldn't see the number on the bus nor did I know if it had originally been headed west up the hill, or east down the hill. I'm so glad that I happened to be at the window, looking to see if the snow continued to fall, so that I could get this out-of-the-ordinary photo.

By the time it had stopped snowing 12 hours later, most of Portland was snowy white, an inch or two here, as much as four inches there. The occasional snowfall happens here, what usually doesn't accompany it is the bone-chilling cold forecast for every day this week, plus next weekend. Nothing above 25 degrees, gusty winds, single digit wind chills.

When I got home from work today, Mama asked, "Have you heard it's supposed to snow six inches on Wednesday?" "Here?" I asked, shocked. I had seen snow predicted for Saturday, possibly. But not on Wednesday. Oh, boy.

We are gonna have us a mess here, with snow on top of ice. I made it fine today, with my Yak Trax on my shoes--they're rubber and metal traction devices, two pairs of pants, two pairs of gloves, a fleece vest inside my wind-resistant raincoat, a scarf and a knit hat. I had to wait about 25 minutes for my first bus, and walked four blocks to the best place to catch my second one which, thankfully, arrived a few minutes after I got there. I did leave the rolling black bag at home, opting instead for an over-the-shoulder bag. I'll make it fine the rest of the week, too, even if it snows that much. My Yak Trax fit my black rubber boots so that if it gets that deep, I'll wear them, not my Keens. And tomorrow I'm taking the rolling black bag so that I can stop by the grocery store after work, especially with that weather forecast pending.

Here are several other photos I took from the window. I opted to stay inside Sunday, knowing full well that I'd have to get out on Monday, to go to work. Looking straight down from the kitchen window, at two covered vehicles, scooters or motorcyles, and the snow-covered vehicles on each side of them. I like how the snow looks all around the vehicles and on the pavement.

I particularly like the tire-track designs in the intersection. I took this photo around 9:20 a.m.

And this one vividly tells that the street is one-way, don't you think, with the wide bands going the same way as the van?

Here's the first icicle that I can remember seeing on one of our windows--this is the same kitchen window that I looked out for the other photos.

These sort of twin icicles are on the same window, about a foot to the left of the larger one.

And here is the larger one, after the night had fallen. See my shadow on the left side of the photo?

How about these two cars? First photo, taken a little after 8 a.m.

Second photo, taken at almost 11:30 a.m.

And this last one, taken right before 7 p.m.