We had one of our “ice storm scares” yesterday.
I hate going to work in the morning with the parking lot just beginning to ice up, each drop that falls from the sky coating the windshield…knowing that after a couple of hours of casing our day’s delivery and prepping to start the driving part of the day, it could be a lot worse.
I didn’t end up having all that bad a day.
I had a bunch of “wake me up moments”….moments when the car just didn’t feel right…when the back end slid just a little, or it took a little too long to stop. That can be kind of terrifying when you’re expecting the “big slide”…but it really wasn’t all that bad when all was said and done and I was finished and back at home.
I think that the thing about the kind of ice we had yesterday was that it was never so thick that you could count on it. It never got to the point where it was predictable…just to the point where it was expected that something might happen.
That makes for a day of angst…driving around with the fatalistic “lets just see what happens” mindset.
So you creep around the curves, gear down and drive slow on the big downhills (the downhills never seemed so long and so steep before)…and concentrate on what you’re doing.
Concentrating wears me out.
One thing that is kind of nice about the bad weather is that when they say that it’s not safe to be driving, for the most part people stay off the roads.
It makes for a quiet day of driving.
I had some great theological thoughts…deep, deep, deep thoughts…about not seeing trouble until it was sliding you off the mountain. Now I can’t really remember the gist of those plans.
The reality of it is that black ice is a pain in the rear.
Just spooky enough to get your attention…dangerous because you don’t know when and where it will show up.
Give me some fluffy snow next time…I’ll believe that when I see it.