My life flashing before my eyes
Well, not quite that bad, but close.
After pulling out of my driveway, I flipped the switch to set in motion the windshield wipers and leisurely watched the blades and wiper fluid work in harmony to expunge the dirt and leaves accumulated overnight.
Instead of a sound of the blades and fluid rubbing against the windshield, emanating from the front of my car was more like a chiseling sound. Then I knew something had gone awry: the windshield quickly and completely turned opaque within seconds.
I froze and stopped the car. Thankfully, I was still in the residential area, not on the freeway or a major surface street. I pulled over very slowly, and grabbed the squeegee to scrub off whatever was covering the windshield.
It was not dirt, and the blades were in good shape. The windshield was caked in ice, and the blades were grinding away at it, not fluid and dirt!
Uh..hello, this is Southern California. This isn't supposed to happen here.
We do not allow ice to exist outside freezers around here.
Got back into my car and turned on the heater hoping the internal heat would melt away the ice. It took about 5 minutes.
My readers from the Midwest and the East Coast will probably get a chuckle out of this, but a chill went down my spine at the thought of this happening on the freeway with my car moving at 65 miles an hour.
Never in my 25 years in Southern California had I seen anything like this. I think I'm still in denial. Is there therapy for something like this?
posted by David Cho @ 1/16/2007
25 comments
25 Comments:
It'll be okay, honey. All that matters is you're SAFE.
Put some newspapers on your windsheild at night and you won't have to worry with that again!
David, you've been missing out. I'm a native here and, as you know, live about 25 miles south of you. I have the ice on the car experience every few years. One year it happened so often I bought an ice-scraper for my windshield. I am going to post a photo of it on my blog just for you :)
Just be careful tomorrow, it's suppose to be cold again tonight!
mad - thank you so much for lending your shoulder to cry on. Sniff, sniff.
barbara - What? I must not wake up early enough to see this.
Newspapers on the windshield? How do you make them stick?
the photo is up
Glad you didn't get on the freeway before that happened. I must say I'm jealous. It's been unseasonably warm and rainy here and I would love to have some normal winter weather. I'm one of the rare few who like winter.
Welcome to my world. This past weekend everything was shut down because of an ice storm, and today the college I work for isn't even opening until noon (if then) because of snow and ice. Most of the school districts have shut down and traffic is moving very slow. All I can say is, thank goodness for garages! The main thing is: be very careful when driving because sometimes you can't even see the ice on the road (around here we call it black ice) and you'll be spinning before you know it.
Take care.
B~ (from Texas)
Don't be a cheap Asian and use just water hehe
The best thing to do with outside ice and other natural phenomena is to photograph it. I did, when it snowed here at my northern L.A. home. I'd post a picture on my picture pages, but Flickr won't take my credit card and let me buy some cyber-space.
umm...a week ago we just went through -40 F, more than 70 mph winds, and 12 inches of snow in less than 24 hours....my kids had to walk more than 3 blocks in it to a neighbors because the roads where my husband and i work were closed down by police. (seriously..i have pics if you are interested!!)
then again, i live in canada and you would think the dog team i took to work everyday from my igloo would have made it but there were a bunch of cariboo running amuck!! (not seriously...i drive a saturn but up here they put skis on instead of tires...)
all i can say is thank goodness there wasn't a state of emergency called during your terrible "frost storm" :)
tip....credit cards work well as scrapers but don't use the magnetic side.
...there is such a windshield washer fluid made for such natural disasters as yours that will not freeze...
...park your car facing the sun rise, the heat from the sun usually takes care of chill...
...hire me to move from canada to you to start your car every morning for you so you never have to go through such terrible trauma again. we could have a telethon to raise money.
take care my poor poor southerners!!!
Yeah, I am afraid that you aren't going to find much sympothy from our neck of the woods....
We have been waking up to between 4 - 9 degrees...yes that is single digits and never making it out of the teens in the "heat" of the day. We aren't as bad as others, but buck up little camper you haven't seen nothing in your little cold front!
No wonder the UCLA game is so early in the season.... :)
Well not a lot of sympathy from Canada and elsewhere.
But the whining will not stop.
maybe your governor could come up with a plan. he seemed quite the problem solver in terminator 1, 2, and 3 :)
Ok, how about "zooming" (as much as you can "zoom" down the road here in rural Maine) and have a sheet of ice and frozen snow slide off your roof and land completely on your windshield? Makes for a great way to jump start your heart in the morning. :-)
It is much colder here, but I must tell you I was very surprised when while driving down the road and needing to clear my windshield of snow slush I decided to activate my winshield cleaner and it froze instantly. That is also a scary event on a major boulevard.
The crazy thing was that there was snow in MALIBU! Totally wierd!! Good thing you weren't on the freeway that could have gone very bad!
Newspapers or a blanket - anything that will protect it although this misery should be behind us soon
I've been going out 10 minutes ahead of time and starting the car. I hate to waste gas but it's either than or freezing by scraping ice.
I used to be able to buy de-icing washer solution but can't find either it or scrapers here this year.
I know it's not a big deal compared to what much of the country is suffering but if I wanted this weather, I would have remained in the Adirondack mountains of New York.
Newspapers. Use the wipers to hold them down? Unless it's windy though, the dampness should keep them in place.
Haha. Welcome to what we experience every winter!
Hey, send some winter to Ohio. That's what we expect this time of year. Instead it's been rain, rain, rain. Taser is muddy.
Hahaha! I start the car ten minutes early every morning, and still have to scrape. In fact, I keep three scrapers in the car so the whole family can help. I have to giggle just thinking that the process can be traumatic for Californians!
It's gotten better here, Granny. I would think it's been much colder where you are.
Brian, it all goes back to Taser.
cellania, where do you live again? Kentucky?
If you find a place for "ice" therapy...let me know. I'm still in my snowy hell! 7 more inches this past weekend.
You have NO idea how many times I have done that!!! LOL! CA and the southwest US has had it's share of crappy weather lately. Malibu, Phoenix, Tucson, and El Paso got snow. How absurd is that?!
It's called defrost. Use the button on your dashboard and if it's not thick will will melt right off. Cardboard I've also seen.
You'll be fine. Good grief, you're in California for pete's sake. It won't stay cold forever, unlike the great frozen tundra up here. Will it ever get above freezing again? At least we don't have the snow of CO and northwest KS. Thank you, God!
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