Snow splatters the suburbs

By Mandy Walton

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008 | 7 p.m.

Crazy. Unbelievable. Mind-boggling. Exciting.

These are all words I used to describe the snow this afternoon as I kept calling my mom, who only lives two miles up the road from me. I just stood at my window and watched it come down like crazy. She told me the last time it snowed this heavily was in 1979. (I wasn't even born then!)

Ironically, my screen saver at work is a picture Henderson, frosted with the last snow that "stuck" -- which, if I remember correctly, was Dec. 19, 2006. The snow fell during the early morning hours and we woke up to a white morning. Of course, it was gone shortly before lunchtime. This scenario has been replayed only a few times over the last 30 years in Henderson.

After my son woke up from his nap, and I was changing his diaper, I looked to see how many diapers I had left. "Will I run out?" I thought. What if I couldn't get to the store? I know we're not in Minnesota, but strange things happen in this desert. Even now, it's 6 p.m. and I'm looking out the window at about 4 or 5 inches of snow in my front yard. And it's the wet, powdery kind -- the kind real people get to make real snowmen out of.

During the afternoon of craziness, my husband called to tell me he was waiting at Stateline for I-15 to open at 2 p.m. He was supposed to take a load down to California for work. I was scared for him to be driving a diesel in the snow, so I decided no to call him again, to let him call me. He's careful, and he grew up in Salt Lake City, but he's been here in the desert for quite a while. I was a little nervous waiting for him to call.

When he didn't call, I finally called him.

"Where are you?" I demanded.

"It's SNOWING!!!" He exclaimed.

"No kidding," I said. "Where the heck are you? I've been worried sick!"

"I'm playing and doing donuts in my jeep over here off of Pabco Road," he says, like I'm supposed to know that.

I-15 didn't open up because of the snow, so he had to take his load back to work and decided to go play instead.

"You are so dead," I threatened. "The satellite is out, I have no way to watch the news, I don't know where you are, get home RIGHT NOW!"

It was hard to stay mad at him once he got home and started playing with our dog in the snow outside. The process and conditions that have to take place to produce snow are quite scientifically miraculous, and that happening in this desert, well, that is just plain spectacular!