"Snow is a place you go to"

Typically when you think of ice on the sidewalk, you think of a white-ish coating that… like… well… a frosted sidewalk. Tonight here in Baltimore, it was just warm enough to rain, but cold enough to freeze. The result was sidewalks that had a perfectly clear glaze – as if someone layered impossibly polished glass over the walkways. It’s amazingly deceptive. And incredibly dangerous.

People were slipping, sliding, and falling everywhere – clinging onto fences, poles and even shrubs. Usually in situations like this, the safest course of action is to walk on top of patches of grass – except those had been glazed over too. Failing that, the next safest course of action is to walk in the roadway of a busy street since cars warm up the road. The drawback is, of course, that you’re walking in the roadway of a busy street.

Someone (can’t remember who) told me that a Bay Area native once said that “Snow is a place you go to.”

It kind of makes sense – snow isn’t a kind of weather if it doesn’t happen. Just like beach can’t happen – it’s a place.

The last two times I’ve seen snow was today, and about a year ago in Redmond. Snow is fast becoming a place for me too.