the roads near our house

Driving in snow in the midwest is not the same as driving in the snow in the south.

I think we all know that :)

When it snows in my hometown my parents cannot get a car out of their garage.  That's because their house sits at the bottom of a steep-ish hill.  Most people cannot walk uphill on snow-covered ice-slicked concrete, much less pop the car into reverse and gun the engine to see if they can somehow slide up the driveway and make it to the street safely.

I grew up in an area called North Hills and the word "hill" appears in my parent's street address, the name of the two closest streets, and the name of their neighborhood.  In other words, I am not the first person to note that it's a hilly area :)

It makes perfect sense to me that no one should be encouraged to drive when it snows.  Which is just fine, since it doesn't snow much and there's nothing wrong with a snow day every year or so :)

Now, there are some definite perks to life in a very very flat town, especially when there is snow on the ground for months of the year.

This is the street near our house.  It's one of the major east-west roads in town.  Yes, you read that right, this is a major road.  It even has stoplights :)

[I took these pics at rush hour. Or rather I took these pics a little after after 5, in some places that's called rush hour.]

It's flat (of course).  And the pavement is even mostly dry - hardly a speck of snow.

The pile on the side is getting larger, and gray-er.

Turn north on the road closest to our house and the route gets a tad snowier (still flat).

One more block and you've arrived at our street.  It's not a dry street, but it's packed down snowy and not too slippery.  

Parts of our driveway are dry - mostly because the wind tends to come whipping through here.  The house you see behind our garage is a fraternity house.... we live right by campus.  Our east side neighbors are retirees, our west side neighbors are college students (I assume) and have a mattress propped against the side of their house.  It's an eclectic neighborhood :)

And the view from the garage looking at the back of the house.  See the rabbit tracks?  Snow this deep is hard walking - so he's the only one making prints in this snow :)

So what's it like to drive here?  Well, I've mentioned flat.  And the streets are in good shape.  And no one is in a hurry.  I grew up in a large metro area and 96.4% of the drivers are in a hurry, rushing around and darting into traffic and generally behaving like they must do everything possible to cut 3 minutes off their commute.

I have yet to meet one driver here who is in a hurry.  Or at least if they are in a hurry they do a good job hiding it while they are driving.  There's nothing wrong with driving slower than the speed limit, especially in winter when it pays to be extra cautious.

I can poke a little fun at 'rush hour' and roads that are busy enough to merit stop lights.  But really, I like living here and enjoy that driving is not a competitive sport, most every place I'd need to go is a 5-10 minute drive, and my passengers love watching the snow removal work (I think we see someone doing something with the snow - snow plow, snow blower, scraper, dump truck full of snow - every time we leave the house).

So different from where I grew up.  Lots to love and appreciate about both places.