Icy Weekend

I'm not sure I remember a more eventful weekend that involved me going absolutely nowhere for 40 straight hours. After an adventurous trip back from the CIY Vision Retreat over in Kansas on Thursday (early afternoon) and climbing through the trunk of my car twice (because the doors were too frozen shut to open them) in order to get home I didn't go anywhere until Saturday morning. I did take both my Civic and the wife's Solara around the block late Friday afternoon after I got them cleared off and the driveway shoveled - just to see if I could go anywhere without getting stuck.

I learned a couple of important facts this weekend.

1. The average scoop of snow in a snow-shovel weighs 16 pounds. If you average 12 scoops/minute (this would be pretty close to world-class pace) you'll move move almost 2000 lbs. in 10 minutes - and as it turns out may have a heart attack. The scoops I was dealing with on Friday averaged significantly more than 16 pounds, primarily due to the ice content that I was chiseling under. I spent about 2 1/2 hours between the driveway, street, cars and back porch. I'm estimating that I moved 4,000-5,000 pounds of snow and ice. On the back porch there were a few scoops that were literally so heavy I didn't think I was going to get them off the ground. I may need to consider a gym membership if this snow thing keeps up. Sadly, the news reported that 2 people in Missouri did die of heart attacks due to shoveling snow.

2. "Tires, Son, tires are what win races." Harry gave this nugget to Cole after several races where Cole burned the tires up and lost as a result. It has nothing to do with this post except it was a chance to slip in a reference to Days of Thunder. There are multiple reasons why my Firehawk stays in the garage when there is snow or ice on the ground. Not the least of which is the fact that the 275/40 ZR-17s on it are summer performance tires. Translated - they only get good traction on dry and wet pavement, not slick pavement. It turns out that the tires on the Civic suffer from the same issue. While they're not serious performance tires - though they are directional and have a tread pattern somewhat similar to the Firehawks - they were not intended for snow or ice. My wife's car gets around pretty well on the slick stuff - thanks to it weighing 3400 lbs., having front-wheel drive and the all-important all-season tires. The Civic goes sliding every time the wind blows from the combination of weighing closer to 2000 lbs. and having non-winter tires. I think when it's time to replace those next fall I may go with a less aggressive dry pavement tire in favor of something suited for winter use. Then again, maybe next year we won't have winter - we haven't had since 2003 - or maybe I can talk my wife into letting me bring the Jeep back to Joplin from my parents house. At that point, there would likely be no snow-storm that can keep me from going wherever I decided to go. "Jeep...there's only one."

Stay warm, use second gear (you'll spin less), and don't overdo it with the snow shovel.