Albeit, a little late in the week…here’s my snow story:

December 17^th, 2009

Who’da thunk: forecasting 3 to 5 inches actually STUCK! As did the snow that actually fell. I guess it started around 3pm, just in time for holiday, 5 o’clock traffic! Here’s MY photo of snow in inner-city Las Vegas: 

I had a client today in Henderson, and from where I’m at in Las Vegas, the trip was about a 15-mile trek across town. I knew not to challenge the freeways, as Google Maps on my phone is very reliable when it comes to actual traffic conditions right in my palm. Checking Google Maps is a mainstay for my travel nowadays – it helps me avoid the accidents and places where there are a lot of people and cars not going anywhere! Well, Google Maps showed “red” in all directions on the freeways, so I decided to take the surface streets.

The complications that arose from even attempting to travel on a weather day like today led me to do some thinking outside the Google box. Although Google doesn’t report traffic on surface streets (yet!), I knew that there was a method to their madness in reporting the main highways’ traffic…so, I took that model and applied it to the main surface streets, doing what I could to avoid the very congested main streets.

Although the back streets were not managed by traffic lights, there were some less crowded and in my opinion “safer” areas to go through because of the thinner traffic. I headed through an area that I just knew had to connect to a major street. But, the 4 lane-wide street just dead-ended as I was approaching the freeway that towered above its road-blocked end. Upon turning around, the sky lit up – WOW! I was really impressed that I saw lightning during a snow storm. I thought maybe I was one of the few to witness it…until I was forced back into the heavily-trodden path of a main street where I could manage to turn off again into a safer neighborhood down the road.

It was at this time that I realized: all the lights in the houses, businesses, on the street…oh, and the traffic lights…were out. I think I must have witnessed some sort of massive “short” in the local power generation or relay station. That lightning, I now knew, was not the natural kind found in desert storms – it was human-generated power gone awry!

Oh, yes – I ‘ducked back down the alley” as Paul Simon might have been singing on my stereo, and quickly found a way out of that darkened surface street – and neighborhood I might add.

The entire trip took about an hour – everyone was driving safely and I only saw one, one-car accident on the way. I was happy to arrive…finally!