I'm a modern day Steve McQueen

You probably heard that the northeastern part of the United States got hammered with a snowstorm yesterday. Well, we did. I don't know what the "official" snow totals were for our area. A nearby town had 24 inches and we were in excess of 20. Hard to tell because wind gusts created some really deep areas. I was certainly going to be "The Cooler King".

I live in a small town and it is a town requirement that sidewalks be cleared of snow within 24 hours. My house is right on the street and so there is nowhere to put the snow when you shovel it. I have a small patch of "front yard" but that is it. I'm clever, though.

Yes, I filled my wheelbarrow with snow, took it to the backyard where I had much more room and dumped it. To do that, I first had to create a path to take the wheelbarrow.

I shoveled a path between my house and the one neighbors. Around this time, the theme song from The Great Escape (which is playing right now) entered my head. Shovel five loads of snow into the wheelbarrow, wheel it to the back, then dump it. I tried to trick the guards by hiding the snow in my pants and then shaking it out the pant legs but it was cold and there were no guards so I quickly put an end to that. Here's the pile early on:


I was fortunate in that a neighbor who owns a business (I'm right on the "business district" of this town) decided to snowplow a path for everybody.

So it was just a matter of connecting Tunnel A to Tunnel B before freedom was mine:

Oops, the escape vehicle is buried!

I tried to enlist help by bribing a tourist with cigarettes and chocolate but he wasn't having any of that. So it was up to me. I got into it. My town is named after a French town that bordered Germany and was once under control by the Germans so that played well into this theme. I might have gotten a little carried away when I called the ex-mayor, who lives two doors down from me, "Kommandant". OK, this paragraph is largely untrue.
Two hours later, I took a break (I did my neighbors walk and porch, too, since they are away).


Just imagine what I could have done at Stalag 13.

Update:I almost forgot. THIS is why I love indoor rowing so much. Because it develops the full body, especially the core, which enables me to shovel snow with ease? No, don't be silly, although it does do that. Indoor rowing for long distances is mind-numbing monotony, perfect preparation for when you're digging tunnels from prison or shoveling snow.