If you’ve spent more than a year or two in Tahoe, then I’m sure you know what I mean by “winter scramble.” Like chipmunks scurrying around before the first snow storms, we also must get our winter stores and houses in order.
Most of us in Tahoe already scrambled before the first teaser storms in October. So at least the patio furniture is put away, snow tires on the vehicles, firewood stacked in the garage, etc. Now we’ve had this long, warm, dry spell with no snow on the ground to even remind us that the winter solstice passed already a month ago. I find myself again in a state of “winter scramble.” This time, however, it is purely psychological.
Everything around the house is physically ready for the long-overdue arrival of winter snow. Though I will miss seeing dirt on my favorite running trails and roads that are free of shoulder-reducing snow banks, I am more than ready for the cross country ski season to finally start. That being said, I must admit that I have been enjoying the ease, the freedom, in which we have been able to move around town these last two months, with the clear roads and greatly reduced volume of visitors.
2011 vs. 2012. We could walk right onto the lower roof & second-story deck!
Last year’s epic snowfall never caused me to pause and think, “Gee, I wish it was just a little easier to get the kids to school in the snow.” Ironically, it is exactly this year’s lack of snowfall thus far that has me bracing, and thinking just that. The winter holidays without snow fostered a sort of calm that I have not known since having kids. And, now, I feel the “winter scramble” upon me – again – even if it is all in my head.
For more pictures from last winter and this, see my earlier post, A Tale of Two Winters.