My Poor Car

December 27, 2004

The ice storm that rolled through northeast Ohio Wednesday night wasn't kind to the Honda. Out in the driveway at Mom and Jim's, it caught everything Mother Nature threw at us.

Christmas Eve I volunteered to make a run to Mickey D's. Mom called Jim on his cell and got his order, and I went outside to start clearing my car. Ten minutes later, Jim showed up. I was about 2/3 done with my front windshield.

[Frontal view of my car before I cleared it.]
[Side view of my car.]
The Eskimo Car. Note the nice thick sheet of ice covering the entire driver's side. Luckily the passenger side had thawed a bit by that time, so I was able to pound my door open from the inside.

[A close-up of the sheet of ice, almost an inch thick.]
Here's what I had to contend with. You can see where quite a bit of ice had collected near the windows. It's been coming off in sheets since Friday afternoon.

[I finally managed to clear the windows half an hour later.]
After going inside and letting the thing idle for 20 minutes, I was able to clear the ice off my windows. I also managed to break my scraper hacking at it.

[I also had to chip the ice away from my gas cap.]
Driving to Akron, I just about drained my tank. That presented a slight problem.

[Ooh, pretty icicles!]
There were also several icicles hanging off the back. This was after driving to the gas station and McDonald's, so the ones that had been touching the ground were already gone. Oh yeah, forgot to mention: My tires were frozen to the driveway when I left.

[By Sunday night it was mostly clear.]
This was taken Sunday night, more than 100 hours after the ice storm began. It looks like my car's auditioning for the lead in Phantom of the Opera.

◀ December 24, 2004December 28, 2004 ▶