I don’t like talking about the same topic twice in a row unless it’s something on the scale of politics, but I can’t help but write about the weather again today. My drive to and from MCCC takes a little over half an hour, and the intersection of US-23 and Ida West Road, where I get off of/onto US-23 up here in Michigan, is almost exactly the halfway point of my drive in terms of time. When I left the house a little over an hour ago it was raining fairly steadily, and between all the rain of recent days and the snow melting, we’re actually seeing our street starting to have serious flooding issues. It used to be that our street never flooded, likely because we were all using well water, but several years ago Toledo mandated we all switch over to city water. I used to think the awful taste of the tap water was the only problem caused by this switchover, but I think the fact that we’re not using well water any longer may be contributing to the flooding problems we’ve been having lately. (At least all the houses are significantly higher than street level, and very few houses in Toledo have basements since we’re basically built on swampland.)

The rain was bad enough as I left here, and as I drove into Michigan it got so heavy that visibility became a serious concern. About halfway up US-23, though, the rain got heavier, and little ice chunks began to show up on my windshield. I literally drove right into freezing rain, and in the two miles before I got off of US-23 I counted a half-dozen cars that had slid off of the road. I immediately slowed way down and basically drove in a crawl up here to campus, thankful that I always budget a lot of extra time to get up here in case I run into circumstances like these. Things have since switched over to a heavy snow, and I can tell that driving home tonight will not be fun at all. Before I leave here I may try to get onto a mapping Website to find an alternate route home that doesn’t require highway driving, because trying to drive home in this is going to be a serious test of my abilities. Is this the universe’s way of getting back at me for saying the fog wasn’t so bad to drive in earlier this week?

I can’t say that I’m too happy with the college for not canceling class this evening. We don’t quite have blizzard conditions here, but the snow is steady and the roads are going to be icy as all get-out by the time I let my class go tonight. If it weren’t for the fact that I get paid by the class, I probably would have canceled class tonight just for the sake of my students. I mean, yes, part of the reason colleges have fewer snow days is because we want to get students accustomed to how few snow days there are in the work world, but the measures by which campuses are and aren’t closed still feel way too against the students and teachers to me. Most of the people going to college are fairly new, less experienced drivers, and so I think it’s in the interests of the school to be a bit more lenient when it comes to canceling class just to help keep the students — and those who can’t avoid driving in these conditions — safe and secure.