Originally Posted:
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
12:19:00 PM CST
Hearing the low hum of my space heater
It's winter here in good ol' Kentuckiana and I got my first big taste of it yesterday. So far, Bowling Green has managed to not have a drop of Winter's usual concoction of snow, ice, freezing rain, freezing temperatures, and sleet and my winter break in Evansville was unseasonably warm and mild. So, so far I've not had to wear my snow boots, my ear muffs, or four layers of clothes. However, yesterday I was in Evansville when a winter storm came barreling through. At 1 pm I saw a few snow flakes peppering down. No big deal. Meh, what's a little white stuff? But within the hour the snow picked up, changed to a wetter version and started to accumulate. I knew I had to high tail it to Bowling Green if I wanted to not get stuck in the 3-6" the weather man was prediciting at this point. I got on the road at 2 pm, but it was already too late.
I took these photos with my cell phone at about 3:15 pm as I was reaching the Henderson bridge. Now, mind you, I was on the eastside of Evansville at 2 and an hour and fifteen minutes later had passed by the time I had driven what would normally take about fifteen minutes. Henderson was almost at the point I would call a white out. I couldn't see squat so I pulled over at a gas station to get "driving in bad weather food staples": hot chocolate, Reese cups and Cool Ranch Doritos. Mmmmm....comfort food! Once again I ventured onto the snow and ice covered roads, now being filled with people trying to get home because they werer left out of work early, only to be met head on by sleet and freezing rain coming down quickly. Of course, my windshield wipers were gathering clumps of ice and only clearning streaks of my windshield, but I kept going. When traveling at 25-30 miles per hour max andthe daylight hours coming to a close, I just wanted to get back to Bowling Green. I made it to Owensboro where I pulled over once again to clean off my wiper blades which were caked in layers of ice then got back on the highway. By now it was 5 pm and I was thinking I was far enough from Evansville that the winter storm should be going away so I can have a clean ride the rest of the way back to school. No such luck. Owensboro was covered and so was the parkway for the next 50 miles. I had my defrost on full blast trying to help the wiper blades from freezing, my drivers side window cracked for some cool air to come in and save me from the defrost heat and sleet pellets pecking at my face as they came in the drivers side window. About this time, I hear a thump...thump...thump sound and realized that my driver's side windshield wiper had stopped working and the thumping sound was the blade trying to go up and down, but nothing was happening. My gimp wiper blade was frozen down. I found myself with my right arm wrapped around my passenger seat headrest with my head leaning to the left while stearing with my left arm just to see out the windshield to drive. I pulled over under an overpass so I didn't have to fight the sleet and my wiper blade at the same time to see if I could free my blade. Well...you know how when a car pulls over the other drivers are supposed to switch to the farther lane to avoid having an accident? Yea. No. They didn't do that. I got wolloped with snow splatter by passing cars as I was being a damsile not-in-distress on the side of the road. All I could do is stand there and shake my long ice scraper brush high in the air and yell profanitites at the inconsiderate drivers. Back in the car I got, and back on the road I was. About 10-15 minutes outside of Bowling Green I saw that the surroundings were dry as a bone and I could pry myself up off the passenger side seat and see out of my own side of the windshield to drive. When I got to Bowling Green my car has a thick layer of ice covering it and mounds of snow and ice had build up around the undercarriage. My car looked like it was dropped in from another planet among all the other clean, shiny, dry cars.
I took this picture when I got to Bowling Green.
And this is what it's like to drive with one windshield wiper working. It rained this morning so I was back to leaning to the passenger side to drive. Gotta call the fix-it guy NOW!!! Now I know what's it's like for people with glaucoma.
The whole 4.5 hours it took me to get back to Bowling Green I kept hearing Heywood Banks' Wiper Blades song over and over in my head. If you've not heard it, click on the link. Sorry about subjecting you to this guy's video, but it's the only version I could find to embed.
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