Sunday, January 04, 2009

'sno joke



This is what our Prius looked like after driving home from Tigard, where we visited our friends Brit & Enid (and their kids, Aidan and Ava) this afternoon. It had started snowing a little when we went out for dinner at Elmer's (the kids' favorite restaurant), and on the way back to their house, we had to get out and push the minivan up part of a hill. Just a little.

Brit ended up parking the minivan a few blocks from their house, on a level stretch of road, and we walked the kids home. They seemed pretty happy about the whole adventure.

Below, a close-up of the ice sculpture that accumulated just forward of the windshield wipers during our drive from Tigard to Vancouver tonight:



D drove, because she's had more experience driving in foul weather from living in Chicagoland. We passed a few stopped vehicles on our way home, but only one collision, just before our exit from I-205 North. We phoned it in to 911, and were glad to hear that state troopers were already on their way.

Snowfall--especially the big, fluffy flakes we got tonight--makes a distinctive sound when you're driving through it. It's a gentle shhh, almost like the sound of the ocean. Unlike rain, which smacks hard and loud against the windshield, the snow is falsely comforting in its softness.

And then it hits the ground and starts partying with its good-for-nothing friends and clumps up and ices over, and if that goes on for long enough, you get crap like this:



Stupid snow.

~CKL

1 comment:

LC said...

That video is astounding. Why did people continue to enter that intersection? Even without seeing the previous accidents, it seems like there was a significant grade to that road, and things were icy even before getting to it. I'm sure it's way less obvious from their POV (at least I hope it was)