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Off Beat: Take a trip down that lane where the snow will never melt

By Tom Vogt, Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: January 16, 2017, 6:00am
2 Photos
Carty Road in Ridgefield was covered with snow after a winter storm moved through Clark County on Dec. 17, 2008.
Carty Road in Ridgefield was covered with snow after a winter storm moved through Clark County on Dec. 17, 2008. (Columbian files) Photo Gallery

There is a stretch of street that’s always covered with packed snow. It never gets plowed, and the sun never melts the portion of Memory Lane that runs through December 2008.

Weather events tend to get people thinking about the last time we had this much rain or heat or roof-ripping wind.

And when it comes to the recent foot or so of snow, those “last-time” discussions have been going back to 2008.

Columbian reporter Adam Littman had one of those conversations a few days ago with Ridgefield resident Megan Schlegel. She lives near View Ridge Middle School in a corner house at the top of a popular sledding street.

By 2 p.m. Wednesday, she had more than 10 kids sledding down her street. They included her 7-year-old daughter, Lillian Schlegel, who attends nearby Union Ridge Elementary School.

“I love watching all the kids sled down the hill,” Megan Schlegel said.

She said that big snowstorms always bring back good memories.

Her family moved from a Vancouver duplex into their Ridgefield home during the “White Christmas” snowstorm of 2008, which she remembers well.

“We couldn’t go anywhere. We had to make do with just the basic things we had around the house,” Schlegel said.

A Columbian reporter got to thinking about how those transportation problems changed his commute: He took the bus to work.

A quick look in our archives found something he wrote in 2008, calling the bus ride a nice chance to sit back and enjoy the view.

“He saw some things you don’t see when you’re behind the wheel. Like the dog that was outside the bus, looking back at him through the window.

“Now, the bus was doing maybe 30 mph down Interstate 5; the dog’s head had to be 8 or 10 feet above the freeway, in the adjoining lane.”

So our reporter got up and moved to the other side of the bus and looked out the window.

“Turns out the dog — a husky — was riding in the back of a pickup. Instead of curling down in the corner of the truck bed, the dog was stretched up on his hind legs, paws on the top of the cab. The dog seemed to be enjoying the view, too.”


Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter