Our poor confused truck. While it spent its early years in this region, it has lived in the Middle East for the last ten years. It got adapted to the hot weather, and sun and dust, and has held up very well over the years. Then we brought it back to Maryland. It arrived in September and was fine in the Autumn weather, but come the first cold snap in November, when the temperature dropped into the 20’s for the first time, it actually set off its alarm several times as if in panic. Like a kid who had a nightmare and calls his parents in at night. It would get cold and start hollering with its alarm “Help! Everybody! Get out here! Something’s wrong!”. We had to disconnect the battery. Fortunately, it has figured out the cold, mostly, and is doing better. The defrost needs some help though, and the 4WD doesn’t seem to work as well, but for a 12+ yo SUV with hard miles on it, it does very well indeed.
Anyway, the kids had piano lessons scheduled for this morning. The snow was not forecast to begin until 1pm, and even then, we were only forecast to get 1-3” of accumulation. I didn’t think much of it when, as we left the house, flurries were already starting. During our hour’s lesson though, the snow got heavy and started to stick. I went out a little early and got the car going to warm up before the kids’ came out. That was a good idea…
Honor took a lot of photos on the way home. This storm came in fast and heavy and the plows didn’t have a chance to get out in advance. The roads had been clear when we drove in. By the time we got on the road, we could see snow piling up in the center of the roads, between the driving lanes, 1-2 inches deep at least. Traffic was crawling, which was good, because it was very slick.
Some of these photos aren’t very clear, but I like the effect. It’s like almost like impressionist paintings. They definitely catch the feeling of driving through the cold and snow. Oh, and there was a ton of traffic. I guess that we weren’t the only one under the impression that we had a few hours before the weather changed for the worse. Oops!
The snow and ice on the windows couldn’t melt fast enough. My heater was kicking out the hot air, but I still actually had to stop at one point, on a cul-de-sac, and scrape my windows so that I could see.
Honor accidentally hit one of the special ‘thumbnail’ shots for this photo. It took the outside photo while catching a shot of her too. She wasn’t paying attention, and it made her look so sad! She wasn’t, but a sad face goes with this photo so well!
The snow was blowing sideways. Some cars were driving that way too.
It took us nearly an hour to make what is usually a 10 minute drive. And the roads were way too bad to stop for the donuts we’d planned for breakfast (boo!) but we laughed and had a good ride anyway!
Finally, we made it home! Yay!!
We managed to get up the driveway without sliding off into the ditch, whoo! And even managed to get up the hill too, but I wasn’t going to try and turn it around. The snow on the drive was already thick – 3 inches in places (it had been clear when we left) – and even by this time, we had not yet reached the time when all this was supposed to have even started!
My trusty steed.
