Icepocalypse 2013… The aftermath
Denim shows off her delightful array of icicles, sand, and more icicles. Not long after this photo, outside temps finally warmed enough that we shed our protective ice hat.
Venit. Vidit. Vicit.
It came. It saw. It kicked our ass.
Snow is a rare and beautiful sight in Dallas. Ice, on the other hand, seems to come all too often. It’s a frighteningly crippling beast when it comes, too. It’s amazing what a couple inches of solid water will do to a city. Here in Plano, the street crews sprinkle a little sand here and there on uphill slopes (remember it’s a flat city) and on the approaches to intersections. Neighborhood streets and feeders are left to thaw on their own, it seems.
Amanda laughs as Zen decides to eat Lauren’s iPhone instead of visiting her for some nose rubs.
As the storm began to brew, local authorities deemed it certain that we would be struck. How severely was anyone’s guess, of course, but temperatures were below freezing before we went to bed Thursday night, and moisture was falling ominously from the clouds. Friday morning greeted us with a rather unimpressive accumulation of frozen water attached to everything: trees, bushes, cars, mailboxes, elderly pets… anything outside and too slow was coated with crystallized water. This, of course, meant it was time for a cup of hot tea.
In Dunn family tradition, we fired up the television to watch the news crews cover important stories like collapsed carports—breaking news—and frozen overpasses. Apart from the colossal failure of the Interstate highway system north of Denton where a clot of eighteen wheelers guaranteed that there would be no forward progress since no crews could fix the roads when they were covered with immobile trucks, the news was filled with trivialities and a remarkable sense that people had, in fact, heeded municipal advice and stayed home. So, we, of course, thawed out Denim, our blue F350, and headed out to Kroger to pick up supplies to craft a pot of spaghetti sauce. Kroger also allowed us to avert a minor peanut butter emergency. Let’s just say if Amanda and I develop a peanut allergy, sell your stock in Jif…
The falling bits of ice from various parts of the truck created some interesting ice art on the tire.
It proved fortuitous that we ventured out, thus thawing out the truck, since temperatures wouldn’t be as high for over 48 hours. Saturday was brutally cold, but we did venture out to the barn to check on Cody and Zen. Zen was looking stunning in his new purple blanket and Cody was doing his best not to look and sound like Eeyore despite the weather’s attempt to gloomify everything in sight. Following our drive into Parker to the barn, we visited our friends at Rancho Que Sera for tea and cookies. So, yeah… we’re suckers for tea and cookies…
By Sunday, Cody and Zen were moving around the pasture a bit more and munching on hay. We added some water to their trough and liberated Cody’s supplements from their icy captor. His soy oil even got to take a field trip to the barn office since it had reached a consistency slightly thicker than corn syrup… Not real optimal for pouring…
A little gratuitous ice art photography… Hey… we southerners have to milk what we can out of “cold” weather…
To cap off the weekend’s excitement, we ventured south to the big city for the “Final” NTS2KOC Christmas Party—and a fine farewell party it was! I do hope it’s not the last, though, since it’s such a fine and varied group of folks that make up that group, even if some of them still drive Hondas—kidding, of course. Karma even decided it was our turn to score some liquor in the white elephant exchange. Interestingly, the “good gifts” all seemed to be claimed quite early in the exchange, causing lots of “I thought we were supposed to bring gag gifts” comments.
It became apparent during the party that a lot of teachers were present as the various school districts in the area decided one by one to cancel school for Monday. This, of course, caused no small degree of panic with days not weeks remaining before the end of the fall semester. And then I got the notice that UT Dallas was closing, too. Great… No time like out of time…
