It is January 27, and the biggest question I have before I leave my apartment is not how many layers of clothing I need to have on, but do I need an umbrella.
The past three weeks or so have served as a microcosm of every Prince George winter for the past 10 years condensed into a very short time frame. We had the deep freeze, then the big snowfall, and now the thaw.
A good picture of how the winter has gone recently can be seen in the notes on the back of my apartment door. A couple of days before the parking lot is to be plowed, a note is left on the front door of each apartment in the complex, telling us when the clearing will be done and reminding us to have our vehicles out of the lot that day.
I checked back. I had one note from early December, and nothing for the rest of 2023. Then we got the lot plowed on January 11. January 18 and January 23 – and it needed it each time.
One thing about our snow clearing at the apartment is a change in the last couple of winters. There is another apartment building right across the parking lot from mine. It is owned by a different group than the one that owns mine, so for the first few years I was here, we had an interesting series of events.
We could get our note regarding snow clearing of the parking lot, but it would only be our side of the lot. The same in the spring or summer when the gravel was cleared away.
It made for an interesting look, as you would drive into the lot and one half of it would be cleared of either snow or gravel, and the other side wasn’t.
The past couple of years it seems the two owners have gotten together and agreed that didn’t make sense, so now the entire parking lot is cleared each time.
It means the street the parking lot exits onto is pretty crowded, with vehicles from both apartment buildings out there, but it’s worth it.
As I’ve mentioned before, I drive a car with very little clearance, and there were times where even when our side of the lot was plowed, I was still nervous about parking in my spot because I would have to drive into the snow on the other side to get the right angle.
Now, no problem.
If only the rest of my problems could be solved that easily.