Spring Drives - From My Window

I’ve done a lot of driving the last two weeks for various reasons.  I cope fairly well with winter road conditions, but spring road conditions are actually more unpleasant for me.

Sunday I had to make an unexpected 5 l/2 hour round trip to Minneapolis.  All the “joys” of spring driving were in play.

The biggest issue was potholes.  I was traveling a major interstate, and they were hellacious.  Some were several feet wide, side to side, and seemed more than six inches deep.  I could feel the tires drop into them, and the bumping noises coming from underneath the floor were making me cringe.  I tried to avoid as many as possible, resulting in my vehicle weaving right and left in a slalom pattern.  I was waiting to see red lights approaching from the rear, because someone feared I was heavily under the influence and had called to report me.  Good thing no deer were moving around, because I never would have seen them, with my focus on avoiding the potholes. 

The underparts of my car are a mystery to me, because when I requested to take auto mechanics in high school, I was told it would be impossible to accommodate in the schedule.  I highly doubt that was the case.  The standard was girls to home economics and boys to auto mechanics.  In 1972 roles were set for the sexes and flexibility not permitted. Maybe I should have found a boy who would have preferred home economics and confronted the schedule overlords with a one for one swap, which certainly wouldn’t have been an insurmountable obstacle.  Anyway, I think there are ball joints and other mysterious car parts under there that don’t like the abuse I was dishing out. And I know for a fact it’s not good for my tires. 

The road tar strips were noticeable too, much like driving over sets of train tracks that go on for hours.  Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump until I hit one of those heaved-up concrete areas, when I got a different irritating noise and vibration.

There were deer, although they were long dead, rising from the snowbanks in macabre postures and contortions.  The parts that had been out of the snow for a long time were skeletonized, while the parts freshly emerging from snow were still clothed in hide and being kept company in their resurrection by various avian scavengers.

It’s kind of a depressing sight, because you are seeing a entire winter’s worth of death on display.  In older times, crews went around picking up carcasses on an ongoing basis, but I am sure the scavengers like the new system better.

We live on a gravel road, so any trip at this time of year either results in a layer of salt, or mud, or both on my car.  If you look at older vehicles who spent all their lives in the upper midwest you can see why my health care provider preaches the avoidance of salt.  If it eats up car metal, it can’t be good for my insides.  But going to the car wash is a fool’s errand.  I can creep home on the gravel road at 20 mph, trying to keep my car clean, but the next time I go anywhere the highway has been freshly salted due to weekly new ice or snow, and the car looks as bad as it did before I washed it.  I might as well buy lottery tickets or some other foolishness with the money and wait until late April to try and wash the car.

Before I drive anywhere I consult the weather, to determine if it will be a gravel road mud day, a hazardous road day due to current snow or icing conditions, or a salt bath day.  There are days when I get the grand slam – icy or snowy roads at 5:30 a.m. as I head to the animal shelter; generous salt bathing on my return home; and sticky muck on the gravel road when the sun comes out later in the afternoon.

I eagerly await dry, clean roads days, which hopefully will arrive by early May.  In the meantime, I apologize to my 230,000 mile Honda.  She doesn’t deserve the treatment I am dishing out recently.  I think if my car could talk, she’d ask to spend the winters in Arizona.

You can reach me for commentary, alternative viewpoints or ideas at this e-mail address:  JanieTMartin@gmail.com