The Trail's Our Thing

We have had a little excitement in Knoxville this week-- snow!

It doesn't take much snow to create excitement here. In 1993, while I was pregnant with Kelly, we had about 14 inches of snow in mid-March. We already had tulips blooming in our yard! Now that was exciting-- a blizzard! But most years it doesn't snow at all. We've never had enough snow here for Kelly to build a snowman. Most people don't know how to drive in snow. They stock up on bread and milk, stay out of work, and hunker down at home. People here don't own snow tires or chains, snow shovels or sleds. The city doesn't have much snow removing equipment and can really only take care of the main roads. It's also very hilly here, with lots of small shady back roads, where snow doesn't melt quickly.

Half-an-inch of snow can shut the city down for several days... which has what happened this week.

Monday started normally. Kelly went off to school and I was getting organized to leave for the university. Then it started to snow, actually quite hard. The University of Tennessee is one of those places that never closes, so I headed off in the snow to prepare for my morning class. Kelly's school was closed mid-morning and Charley brought her home for the rest of the day. A snow day! Every kid's dream. It snowed until mid-afternoon, and maybe we had an inch of snow on the ground, not much on the roads. I got about 15 messages from students asking if I was cancelling my afternoon and night class or telling me they couldn't make it to campus. About 20 of the 40 students missed my 3:40 class, and about ten students missed the 5:45 pm class.

Kelly watched the television all Monday night, hoping for the announcement that her school would be cancelled again on Tuesday. Most of the schools in the area made their announcement on Monday night, but her school (a private school) didn't decide until early Tuesday. Lucky Kelly got to sleep in. The main issue on Tuesday was ice. This was the day I drove to Chattanooga. There was some ice in our neighborhood, but all the rest of the roads were cleared. It seemed funny that schools would be closed.

Amazingly, most of the schools in the area (including our country public schools) were closed again today. No more snow, but it is very cold with a major wind chill. I guess the buses can't get back into the more rural areas of the county, where ice continues to be a problem. Kelly's school was not cancelled. She likes school, but she reported that no one at school wanted to be there today. "It isn't fair that everyone else got off and we didn't."

I wish I had a photo to post, but there really isn't enough snow to show!