They don't bury the pipes deep enough here. Fortunately, the ground doesn't freeze all that often but when it does.....
Got out a little this morning which wasn't the brightest idea on my part, but the roads had been dry the previous couple of days. We had mist coming down when it was just over 20 degrees.... can you guess what that did to the roads? 2wd was fun, the BFGs did OK, and verified that RABS is working
Frankly I was surprised it started at all. I was a little concerned on one long uphill, but at about 25mph it never slipped a tire. Automatics are definitely superior to manuals for feathering the throttle, and also don't cause surprise engine braking when you let off.
Among other strange things, near the top of the same hill, was a Cherokee slid off and abandoned on the shoulder. There was hardly any slope at that point. Pretty sure my truck would have just driven right off if I had stopped it in the grass there, ground wasn't frozen and the tires of the Cherokee had barely made a rut. Dunno. Probably scared the crap out of the driver and someone else came and got them? It had been there a while and red-tagged.
The Mazda 3 did a little better on the return trip. 4 wheel ABS is a huge improvement over RABS, but the tires on the car don't have squat for traction and maybe less than the truck does. Probably wrong tread compound. First and second are treacherous, too much torque. Third is much better if you can get to about 20 mph.
Coming down a long downhill in the 3, of course there was a car that appeared to be stopped at the bottom in the slow lane. A Super Duty was gaining on me pretty fast in the left lane (I guess people who own full sized 4x4 trucks don't think about the truck weighing 6,000 pounds) so I eased over on the shoulder and just let off the gas. Catching up to the car, it was moving, barely, with the hazards on, just before a bridge. Oh and TxDOT likes to put curves on the road just before bridges, whoever does that ought to be flogged.
By then the Super Duty had passed, so got in left lane and went around the crawling 5-series Beemer. I mean the dude was barely crawling, so yeah I guess he was a hazard...... I think people don't realize that you don't have turn signals when you have hazards on?
About the time I cleared the bridge, and got back in the right lane at about 25 mph, a 3-series Beemer whizzed by both of us. Go figure......
You know it's icy when the WIND is blowing your vehicle around. Turned north and it was a hell of a time keeping it pointed down the road, cross-wind must have been just about right (or wrong as the case may be).
Thought I was done with this shit when I moved south. Spent the rest of the afternoon splitting some wood, just in case we lose power, and (re) covering faucets and thawing one of them out with a hair dryer.
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