How long is this going to ^%$# take??!!

I'm sure that is the sentence anyone in a car in Western Washington was using last night. And I was one of them.
First off, let me explain something to people that have never dealt with West Coast snow.
Every year someone, usually from the Midwest (say, oh, Green Bay...), is on the radio or tv saying,
"Well, I'm from a snowy state. I know how to drive in snow." And claims how we in the NW just don't know how to drive in snow.

What they don't understand is two things: black ice and hills.
Our snow is different. I remember the first time I really experienced Midwest snow. It was on Spike's car and I kept hitting it with my mitten as it would fly like flour. Spike started laughing at me. "We don't have this kind of snow," I explained. Ours is wet and turns to ice almost immediately. Black ice is when it looks like the road is just wet. But what it really is is clear ice, perfect to take your car skating in. And then there is the hills. Basically, we have them. A lot of them.

This is what the hood of my car looked like Monday morning. As I got further into downtown and then south of there, I was noticing I was the only car with snow. After work I was to pick up a friend at the Sea-Tac Airport. He was flying back home after visiting San Francisco. The flight was delayed by half an hour, coming in at 8:00. Sea-Tac is even further south than my work. So I went to Southcenter to eat dinner and kill time by Christmas shopping, since it is only ten minutes away from Sea-Tac - or it usually is. Fast forward to 6:45 when it was hail/snowing. I decided to start heading to Sea-Tac. As I was stuck in traffic there was a flash of light. I thought something exploded. Then it happened again, ten minutes later, this time hurting my eyes as the white flash reflected off of the snow and clouds. There was thunder and lightning. I've never seen hail/snow/thunder/lightning all at once. The traffic was so bad that I actually turned off my car a few times. I didn't get to the airport until 8:15 - so much for ten minutes! And I wasn't late, turns out his plane circled Portland for awhile, waiting out the storm and there was a possibility they were going to land there.
We left the airport at 8:30 and headed to his house in south Seattle - normally a twenty minute (or less) drive. It took us an hour and a half just to get to I-5.
Luckily we were going against the Monday night football crowd (note picture to the left and the time stamp). After a few close calls, like having to stop on a hill and my wheels spinning and the car finally moving forward after the fourth try, we made it to his apt. at 11:30. I just crashed there. No way was I going to try and drive to north Seattle, esp. since I had to work in the morning just a south of there. The whole trip (not counting leaving work) took me almost five hours!
In the morning I called work telling them I was running late but I would be there. I slid carefully out of the parking lot, just needed to take a small side street two yards to the more clear main road. My back left wheel decided that it was tired of being a follower and attempted lead dog status. While I did move forward in the exact direction I needed to, my car was at a slight angle (some racing fan said "drifting"). Almost no snow once I got passed Columbia City. I got there and looked for the people in my dept. to let them know I had finally made it. All three of them weren't even there! People were very surprised to see me - apparently north was one of the hardest hit places and they figured I would be iced in. I left the office at 3, when the sun was just starting to head to the horizon. No sight of snow until Northgate. My cross street - which I swear never had hills until today, was just a blanket of snow and ice. Four lanes total, the lanes closest to the curb had turned in to the abandoned car lane. I made it home fine.