Brrrrr, I can't feel my face.

I've written alot about the joys of living in Iowa, both truth and sarcastic. I'm sure I've made it quite clear, that overall, I do love Iowa. Of all the places I have lived, it's my favorite when you factor in traffic, people, crime, and overall living happiness. If it weren't for Iowa, I wouldn't be married to my beautiful wife and have my three kids. That's not to say that I wouldn't have similar things, but that is an unknown, what I have is real. What is known about Iowa, in the winter, is you never know what you are going to get. I'm not even going to do the "Life is like a box of chocolates" bit, too used. The worst part of living in Iowa is baring down on us as I write this, a blizzard. For those of you who have never experienced a blizzard, or haven't in so long that you don't remember what it feels like, let me give you a refresher. IT'S FREAKING COLD. Lesson over. Current conditions are snow and 40 mph winds, which is a bad combo in any state, but once you get out of the Des Moines metro area, it's dangerous. The wind blows the snow across the roads, and you can hope that the snow sticks to the road, because if it doesn't, it just gets polished into a nice sheen for you and your car to slide down. When it comes to snow, we Iowan's are familiar with the stuff. We can handle it, we know how to get it off the road and most of us know how to drive in it. I would make fun of those that don't and appear to be parking in the grass on my way to work as they have slid off the highway because they thought the snow meant speed up, not slow down, but I won't tease them. No, my fear is I will end up in the ditch and have to eat crow in a future post. Not that I'm unfamiliar with the taste, just want to avoid when I can. This morning, I ran to the gas station to get gas for the snow blower, seeing as how the 6 inches that are coming are more than I want to shovel, and passed a street where a Mayflower moving truck was in the process of loading a house for it's move. My guess is, the people have had it with Iowa winters and are moving south, but that's just a guess. When I saw that truck, with the doors open and stuff in the back, my heart sunk for those movers. I was a mover once, in a life a long time ago, and moved people in the rain and snow. It sucks. Today, however, isn't snow, it's a blizzard, and I'm guessing that "sucks" isn't a strong enough word for what it is. I wish I was there when they carried out the sail, I mean mattress, and tried to get it on the truck with 40 mph. I moved someone in the pouring rain once and by the time you got the boxes from the truck to the house, they were soaking wet and starting to come apart. That was a hard rain. I've moved people in the snow where you had to clear the snow off the boxes before you brought them into the house, plus you couldn't track in snow, so I carried the box from the truck to the door, cleared it off, and the "inside guy" carried into the warm house. That's what happens when you are low guy on the totem pole. Tomorrow will be a challenge to get to work, I'm guessing, but I'm sure things will be back to normal on Thursday. As normal as they can be in AntarcticIowa.