Unexpected Road Trip

I set out yesterday morning for what I thought would be a quick trip to Target to pick up an outfit for my new niece. But when I get there the store was closed and I saw this:

three cranes and 140 people on top of the roof removing snow to prevent a possible roof collapse. They would fill a tarp full of snow and then dump it in the woods. One of the men in charge talked with me for a few minutes and said that as he drove down the highway earlier this week, he saw cranes everywhere trying to remove snow.

Since I was on a mission to get this outfit, I got directions to the next closest Target in Methuen. I have never been to Methuen before, but loved the mall that I found. I also found several more cranes removing snow from roofs.

When I first drove into the mall, I was confronted with several parking lot "aisles" with about 10 feet of snow on either side so I couldn't see which store was at the end of the aisle. I felt like a little kid blindly choosing my "favorite" aisle.

On the way home I saw a front-loader scooping up the snow that was in between the highway and the merge lanes so drivers could see better. Before, it was very dangerous to merge onto the highway since the snow was so high you could not see oncoming cars until you were already on the highway.

And I find a really cute outfit at the Target in Methuen:

I was wishing my nephews were with me b/c they would have loved seeing all the big trucks and cranes taking care of the snow before the rain came that would make it very heavy.

Here is a video of a roof that collapsed earlier this week in MA. I am learning this week that usually when a roof collapses, it brings down the walls with it. (It won't embed but here is the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdo8Yu4M1UQ).