Chevy's On Ice

or if you're watching Fox, it's "When Morons Slide".

As I mentioned before, we got some snow last night.  We got about 3/4 of an inch here at Case de Oso.

Under that snow was 1/4 of an inch of ice.

Girlie Bear got on her bus at 6:15 this morning, but as I was helping load BooBoo into Irish Woman's car, I watched Junior Bear's bus roll away.  At that exact moment, Junior Bear came out of the house. 

So he got a ride to school this morning.  It was very slow going, but traffic was still light and we made it there without taking the truck out of 2nd gear.  Guess who's being woken up by his father half an hour early tomorrow to make sure he gets out on time?

I went back to the house and was getting ready for work when Girlie Bear called me.  Her bus had gone off the road and into a ditch.   No-one was hurt, but the bus driver was asking that all parents who could to come get their kids and drive them to school.

So I got back in the truck, and drove the two miles to the narrow, icy, hilly, and curvy country road that she was on.  It took half an hour to go half a mile once I left the main road.  I retrieved Girlie Bear and we made our way back up the hill.  It only took two attempts in low gear to get to the crest and get  back on the main road.  Since traffic back towards Louisville was at a standstill due to multiple accidents, I decided to go in the opposite direction and get on the interstate.  It was a longer trip, but I thought it would be faster than waiting for traffic to clear on the direct route.

I was wrong.

Half a mile later, I was at a standstill about halfway up a hill.  The cars in front of me were stuck because they couldn't get up the incline, and I was blocked in by cars to my side and rear.

We all pretty much just sat there until the sun came out and gave enough heat to the road surface to turn the ice to slush.  While we waited, we were entertained by the people who tried to use the median as a lane and were doing car gymnastics.  Before this morning I did not realize that a Kia could do a 360 degree slide inside of two car lengths.  Who knew?

We creeped along at 5 miles an hour to the turnoff to the interstate, and then even slower as we all plodded along behind the nice old man I had so graciously let out of his subdivision.  He decided it was safe to go 3 miles an hour on the wet roads.  Let me repeat:  The roads at that point were wet, not icy.  It was the nice old man, followed by me and Girlie Bear, followed by about 50 of our closest friends.  To all of those who were behind me after I let him in front of me, I am truly sorry.

Once I got to the highway, we went along at a good clip, and I got Girlie Bear to school.  I got the call that her bus was stuck at about 7:30, and I got her to her school at 11:10.  There were so many kids late due to road conditions that the principal had decided that there would be no tardy's today.

I made my way home, and called my boss again to let him know I was going to get some breakfast and a shower and then I'd be on my way to work.  Since he's a good guy and didn't want me to waste my time driving across town, he told me to just dial in for the day.  So now I'm installing Oracle remotely.

We're supposed to start getting more snow later this week.  Hopefully it won't cause as much panic and distress as our little dusting did today.