Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1599:

Today was my first day back from our vacation in Las Vegas, and let's just say the commute was... interesting.

Half the reason it was interesting was self inflicted. My wife and I spent the previous seven days in Vegas enjoying 60+°F weather, staying up until 2:30 AM, sleeping in until 10:30 AM, and eating whatever food in whatever quantities we fancied. Neither one of us drink, or it would have been even worse. Our flight home landed at 9:30 PM last night.

The other non-self-inflicted part of the reason it was interesting was while we were gone 13" of snow fell, the wind whipped it into a blizzard and then the temps plummeted to below zero. In fact, the airport opened back up just in time to prevent our return flight from getting delayed.

Once I was back in Sioux Falls I had to trudge out to the far edges of the airport parking lot to unbury our car. When I got home last night I then had to stay up to blow snow out of our driveway. It was 1 AM before I fell asleep, then the alarm went off at 6 AM (which my jetlagged body told me was 4 AM Vegas time.) Ugh.

The plows still hadn't run on the side streets and the MUP, and the air temperature was -9°F with a wind chill around -30°F so I decided to do a split-commute with the bus. Thankfully the buses were running again today after shutting down for a couple days, so I at least had that option available to me. I rode/carried the bike through the unplowed streets and made it to the bus stop, where I (quite literally) stood in snow up to my knees waiting for the bus. The streets from the downtown stop to the office were plowed, so that portion of the ride was a little easier. Thankfully I made it to the client's office without having to drive a car.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of luck to keep a consecutive streak like mine going. This is the second time this winter where I coincidentally happened to be out of town during a major snow event that likely would have broken my streak.