Holiday Storm 2004, Continued

I hope none of my faithful readers were alarmed because you didn't see a post on here this morning - I've been a bit busy today.  And as I type this, I'm not ashamed to admit that every bone and muscle in my body is aching right now.  We've were outside from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. clearing our driveway and helping neighbors dig out.  The official snow count in our back yard was about a foot.  Yes, you heard it right - a foot. 

The morning got off to a rousing start when our neighbor Todd came over to borrow my Blazer, which was nestled snug under the carport.  He needed to run up to the corner to get a few cans of gas for their snow blower.  I was more than happy to oblige, since his Dad would help us clear our long driveway.  I bundled up and decided to go with Todd, in case he got stuck.  Image my disgust when I attempted to start the Blazer and nothing happened.  The lights came on and everything on the dashboard was lit up, but nothing except a click.  After a quick check, Todd diagnosed the problem as the starter celenoid.  I didn't stress too much, since I had planned on taking it to the shop the first of the week.  So on to plan B, using Dad and Mom's Blazer.  Only there was one small logistics issue -- it was in the garage, with the BMW behind it.  It took 3 fairly strong adults 15 minutes to push/pull/rock it out of the garage and into the snow covered driveway so Dad could get his Blazer out.  Once we got that taken care of, the shovel brigade (Dad and I) started to work.  We first cleared a path from the house to the garage, and then we trudged out to the end of the driveway and started clearing it so Todd could see where to pull in when he got back.  There's a drop-off on both sides of the driveway entrance, and all I could envision was Dad's Blazer nose first in the ditch. 

Once we started clearing, it was like we couldn't stop.  We'd get tired and say this was our last shovel full, but we just kept on inching our way on down the drive.  Todd and his Dad Steve took turns with the snow blower all morning and got the driveway about 95% cleared. God bless them both.