Today was my first full day back home. It was a relaxing day with a nice lunch downtown with a former employer and hitting up Costco later in the afternoon. I have passed the Costco disease onto my mother. She is now infected. I still have Christmas shopping to do, I just hope that it isn’t that bad out when I go. However, for today when I headed downtown it took a little bit of time than usual. The traffic was moving, albeit slow, the entire way downtown.
Last night and this morning there was freezing rain and sleet that was blanketing the Twin Cities. This means that everything just gets covered in ice. It took about 15 minutes for my Mom to chip clear all of the ice on the car before I left. That is just crazy. Firstly, it is freakin’ freezing out and then on top of that you are chipping ice off of the car.
The roads were not much better. All of the surface roads were covered with a thin layer of ice. This makes it very difficult to drive on. Just getting out of our residential street was a challenge. All you heard and felt was the spinning of the tires on the asphalt. Because of this ice, traffic was extremely slow and there were many accidents. By many, I mean about 350 from just today alone. Yeah, welcome back to Minnesota.
It was also interesting to listen to the radio. I keep forgetting that we (Minnesotans) do some interesting things in the winter. We keep a survival kit in the backs of our cars. We always have hats, gloves, and other things (wood, salt, shovels, etc…) in our car just incase we get in a wreck or stuck. When it is real cold we stay in our stalled car, instead of walking in the freezing cold. By freezing, I mean minus zero with the wind chill (or maybe without). If you’re spending over fifteen minutes out in the cold you will begin to be effected by the chilliness. So, the winter’s here are no joke. Something that I tend to forget in the mild climate of Seattle.
So, I’m looking forward to the high being 30 degrees. Yeah, that is the high for my entire stay at home. Tomorrow it is off to Wisconsin to pickup my brother. I’ve been seeing that the weather will be much of the same tomorrow. This looks like it could make for a long drive. I’ll have to hope that by the time that I am heading out things will clear up.
Man, I can’t even describe this anymore. You kind of have to experience the slickness on the roads or the feeling of your car going “80” while only moving inches on the road. Yeah, ice, ice, baby…