Stupid Weather and Stuff

Man, I thought Friday was pretty rough, what with having to finish packing all my stuff, making trips to Goodwill, cleaning my apartment, packing the car, and then driving 670 miles, but today was worse. Last night, the whole midwest got dumped on by ice.

My car was a big block of ice this morning, and it took 20 or 30 minutes of letting it run on high defrost, then borrowing an ice scraper from the lady at the motel desk before I got the windows all clear. Then I got on the freeway and averaged about 15 mph for about an hour and a half. When I finally got up to sort of decent speeds, my windshield wipers gave out on me and it was freezing rain on me and it was like driving without my contacts in and I was pretty much inches from death. Imagine driving on Interstate 40 through Oklahoma City with waxed paper all over your windshield. What a nightmare.

I was able to pull off at an exit and pull over so I could hack at the ice all over the wiper blades. It's funny how nice people in Oklahoma are. I was out there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes and at least four cars stopped to help. I explained to them that I just needed to get the ice off the blades, and I was okay. Finally, two burly young guys with a "must help, don't take no for an answer" attitude pulled up in a big truck beside me (on the right side, too, so they had to jump the curb onto the grass), and didn't ask me if I needed help, just started helping. They reminded me of a couple Pughs, actually. So I ended up spending the rest of the day stopping every couple hours to scrape the ice off the blades, and I bought an ice scraper of my own, too. In the morning I have to find an auto center and replace them.

After all that, I got pulled over in Chandler, OK. It had cleared up, and I was back up to the speed limit because the roads weren't icy anymore, just a little wet in some parts. The cop said I was going 82 in a 75 zone, and why was I driving so fast? Actually, I didn't realize I was going that fast (though significantly slower than I would have been going had it not been bad weather out). Incidentally, 82 was the speed I was going when I got my last (and first) speeding ticket, which incidentally, was during my last cross-country trip. That ticket was from a Massachusetts cop.

So now I have to pay a parking ticket. Strangely, the ticket doesn't seem to have a dollar amount on it. I have to call the number on the envelope when I get to Maine. I hope it's not a lot of money. It's probably a million dollars. Stupid Chandler.

After more delays with stopping to get the ice off the blades, and more crappy slow-down weather, I came to a complete stop only 100 miles before my destination, due to what I assume was a major wreck. It took about 15 minutes before we were able to move again. As I passed the dozen or so police cars and emergency medical vehicles, I actually didn't see any wreckage. I'm not sure if they dragged it off ahead, or if the median was recessed enough to hide the carnage and debris. Two of my favorite words.

It ended up taking 11 1/2 hours to drive about 550 miles. What a nightmare. Yesterday it only took 7 1/2 hours to drive 530 miles. Yesterday was a much better day.

I have to give props to my car, despite having crappy windshield wiper blades even though I only used them like 20 times over the past two and a half years because I lived in LA. I drove through rain, hail, freezing rain, and snow and subjected the car to temperatures way below anything it's ever experienced, and it's doing really well. It handles great on the ice and I never felt like I was losing control of it.

I'm very tired.