We got to Barnes & Noble at 11:00, just in time for storytime...
Except that storytime was at 10:00.
Luckily there were other fun things to do.
Seth played with duplos while Anika enjoyed new books.
We were here when the snow flurries started. I hadn't noticed or worried. We left to go home for lunch and Seth's nap, and I am glad we left when we did because everyone else wasn't far behind!
Here the kids are watching the snow out our hotel window. Obviously it wasn't really sticking at this point, and little did we know what would come of it.
Thankfully Nathaniel told me not to come pick him up that day. He walked home. He made much better time walking for 30 minutes than all the cars he passed that were parked on the busy street. That's when we started hearing crazy stories...
Nathaniel's co-worker still hadn't gotten home after 3 hours when his commute normally takes 20-30 minutes.
A friend spent 4 hours picking up her daughter from school 3 miles away.
Then the stories got crazier and worse...
Buses were finally dropping kids home after 10pm and many kids slept at school.
After 8 hours another guy parked his car and took MARTA (public transportation) back to his office. He tried again and made it home around noon the next day.
I didn't hear stories about this, but I experienced first-hand the gas stations being out of gas.
Many people were stuck on the freeway for 16 hours.
We ventured out to get dinner that first night. Luckily the road we were driving on was mostly free from traffic, but we definitely saw other roads that were jammed with cars and not going anywhere. Most places were closed, but we found a Burger King and played a little bit. It closed early while we were there.
This was the snow that caused all the problems! Not much snow, but when the Georgia roads and traffic are terrible in the first place, and EVERYONE gets sent home at the same time, add a little snow and only a few plows, and you get big problems! The traffic was often held up because the snow turned to ice and many semi trucks were stuck blocking all lanes of traffic. But because the traffic was so bad the emergency crews and tow trucks couldn't even get where they were needed so the problems continued to escalate.
Here are a couple abandoned cars on empty roads that are normally very busy. Not many people went out the next day, but I couldn't stand to stay in.
In this picture the red car is one that was abandoned. It is right there at the edge of the median in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in this area.
I just could not stay in the hotel any longer so we left. The YMCA, the libraries, the fast food w/play places, etc. were all closed! So we went to pick up Nathaniel from work to eat lunch with us. He was the only one there aside from the security guard because he preferred to walk to work and work at work instead of "work from home" at the hotel.
Almost nothing was open, but we finally found a gas station that was open.
We got some hot dogs and had a picnic in the back of our van.
We have let the kids play in the back of the van a lot lately.
We were so bored being stuck in the hotel that we put a clippy in Seth's hair.
