Snow in Portland

Written by Brian Bailey December 30, 2009 Hits: 243 Favorites

5.0 (1)

Several other bloggers on techbites have recently talked about their winter travel experiences. Today I can add my own. Four adults and 1 2 year old, left our house in Beaverton to meet a friend in downtown Portland. 15 miles away. As we were leaving there were a few flakes of snow in the air. No big deal. There was nothing in the weather forecast about this. They said warming up with some rain. It was probably just the transition period.

As we continued, the snow began to stick. We have had a number of cold days, so the ground was cold. We met with the friend and just over an hour later started to head for home - well before the rush hour traffic would start. The snow was building up a bit, so I gave a quick thought about the best way to get home. To get out of the west side of Portland you have to go over some hills. Along one freeway, it gets to a reasonable height in a very short time, the other freeway is not so high but some tight curves. I decided to go for the curves.

It took half an hour to traverse a few blocks downtown and got onto the freeway ramp. Listening to the traffic news on the radio told us that I had made the right choice. The other freeway was closed. No traffic was managing to get up the hill and out of Portland. They didn't have much better news for us, but we pressed on. The roads were a sheet of solid ice. Cars, semi-trucks and everything else on the road was having problems getting traction. We crept forward a few feet at a time. Then we would go for a bigger distance and stop for 20 minutes with no further movement. To cut a long story short - it took us 5 hours to get home - no dinner, no toys or change of diapers for the child. But when we got home, we were so glad that we were safe and had not beaten each other physically or verbally.

Quite the ride!

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5.0

Welvome to the crew!

Overall:

5.0

Reviewed by Henry Davis
December 30, 2009

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Brian,

I think that you have my 90 mile trip beat by quite a lot. My condolences.

Written by :

Brian Bailey