Use mass transit at every opportunity to get to downtown Chicago. I am not sure mass transit is as much a thing in Texas as it is in Chicago.
I’d be surprised if you are more than a mile from the Oak Park “L” stop (Green Line train). Dead cheap ($2.50) one way as far as you want to go. Waaaaaay cheaper than running a car and paying for parking.
Mass transit will get you almost anywhere in Chicago. It might not be the fastest (although sometimes it certainly can be), and it is old and a bit crummy and occasionally you meet…interesting…people you’d probably prefer you never met.
But it is pretty safe and super cheap. Definitely get yourself a Ventra card when you arrive (the card you can use to pay for any CTA ride). Comes in handy.
Google Maps is pretty good at getting you routes on the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority).
Last week we got maybe 5" of light snow. I think that was the heaviest snow we had had in a couple of years. Absolutely not an issue w/ my medium-sized, single stage blower.
Yesterday and today we got probably 8-10" of heavy-ish snow. Pretty much tasked my blower to the limit - and there were places I had to do a shovel assist.
Walking the dog, I saw probably 3/4 of the blowers were single stage. The folk w/ 2-stage were making it look easy by comparison.
Just a datapoint.
Good lord - are you arriving this weekend? Abort, Will Robinson, abort!
I have a big Toro 2-stage, and along the side of the house (a long sidewalk which runs along a somewhat busy street, and thus, gets plowed often), the snow was 18-24" deep, pushed over onto the sidewalk by the plows. It took me 90 minutes to clear snow this morning, even with the big beast snowblower – without that, it would have been several hours of shoveling, I’m sure.
Doing it all w/ shovel woulda been more than this 60-yr old coulda done!
We are lucky that our driveway is not next to either neighbor’s, and everywhere I need to blow I can pretty much throw the snow wherever. It would be rough for folk to do a long driveway between buildings - or along a street as you mention.
IIRC, bdgr’s new house has an alley and garage in back. Will be interesting to see how well OP clears their alleys. And - in any event - he’s gonna have to shovel space to get from the truck to the house.
OP kinda sucks at clearing alleys. I got stuck once already, and the enighbors helped dig it out. They said it happens several times a week because they don’t plow it right.
LoL, well said. I barely got out of sight of my workplace tonight before I came across a box truck pulled over with hazards flashing but on a pretty dangerous blind curve. As I passed, I noticed the car in front of the truck and it was up on the curb and stuck. I pulled around and the truck driver and I got the guy free in a few minutes. There really isn’t any substitute for humans pushing a car stuck in relatively flat conditions.
We were jubilant after it was free and stuckcarguy shook our hands in celebration. I don’t think I’ve touched another person’s hand since March last year.
Man - you must be to blame, b/c we haven’t had snow like this for a couple of years! I’m ready for it to stop anytime soon, but w/ these temps, it is gonna be here until April!
Yeah, you lucked out with pretty much all the worst aspects of a Chicago winter all in a week or so. It’s been pretty peachy here most of the winter up to now. So you’ll be steeled for future winters.
And plowed alley? That must be a friend or something, because the City of Chicago does not plow alleys – oh, wait, I see you’re in the western burbs. OK. I thought the neighbors were spinnin’ you a yarn for a sec.
In my suburb (a little west and south of Oak Park), they do plow the alleys, but it’s usually one cursory sweep through, and it’s among the final passes that the plows make after a storm ends, after they’ve cleared out the secondary streets.
Yeah, our side street gets plowed last… and it’s quite a hill to get up to the main drag… and it’s a dead end.
Well, I’m amazed what this even older body can do by necessity (don’t have room or personality for a snowblower).
I just have to take it in small stages:
shovel walk/coffee/shovel front steps/cookies/half of driveway/PB&J/other half/coke/sweep porch/scotch… and nap.
I still haven’t dug a path to the alley and I regret letting it get so deep. I don’t generate much trash but the kitchen can and recycling are getting full. Will the shame of being seen by my neighbors driving garbage away win out over my laziness?
Shame, shame! You gotta keep on top of this snow! Looks like @bdgr jinxed us as we may have another foot coming!
I actually didn’t dig a path to my alley – that I don’t bother with. I can still access the garbage cans fine, just need to plod through the snow. I save my energy for the parking spaces out front. Those you can’t get behind on. (I normally keep my car in the garage, but the alleys are not plowed and I’ve gotten stuck twice in it this season – luckily had a metal spade in my car – so it’s better just to keep it out front.)
Last week or so ago, one person in my neighborhood Facebook group was begging for someone to come out with an ice pick or torch to get their snowed-in and now iced-in car out when the weather briefly warmed up and then hit single digits. Ya gotta clear all that snow before something like that happens or you’re screwed.
My electric snow blower has been doing an OK job keeping up considering its single stage. However, today I had to shovel a path just to be able to get to my outdoor electrical outlet. Getting a bit ridiculous.
True that. I got home this evening and dug out. And I hate to do it but I’m going to have to leave garbage in the street after digging out AGAIN tomorrow after finding people (guests of neighbors) in ‘my’ spot twice in the last two weeks. I really don’t like doing it but we don’t have any reasonable alternatives this time of year. I need to put my car somewhere and the nearest major is a snow route. I’ve said elsewhere that I don’t use my alley-accessed garage for my car and, like you, won’t drive down my alley for probably the next few weeks, at least. I’ve given explicit permission to my alley neighbors to use my yard/driveway for snowthrowing. There’s a pretty impressive pile out there, probably taller than me already and it will likely be around well into May.
I’ve done two passes with my two-stage snowblower today, the later of the two at 5pm. We’ve likely gotten another 2-3" since then, and it’s snowing so hard now that it actually looks foggy when I look up the street. I’m glad that I have a good snowblower, a good furnace, and a lot of food.
