In case you haven’t heard, the weather all over Oregon has been a cold, nasty mess this week, with the temps earlier this week dropping below zero (with high temps in the single digits — Fahrenheit degrees, not Celsius). There are some things I’ve learned throughout this:
- My car battery — which is about the size of a go-cart battery and equally as powerful — doesn’t seem to like the temps below 10°F. I had to jump my car or pop the clutch on both Monday and Tuesday when the temps were in single digits. Get above 10°F, and it starts fine. It struggles, but it starts. I actually had an old, fully functional, basically new car battery in my garage (long story) that I just put in my trunk and kept it in there with my cables in case I couldn’t find somebody to jump me or I didn’t park on a hill so I could pop the clutch (which is a pain in the cold, but still possible).
- People in the Willamette Valley totally freak out when there’s ice and snow. If you read some of the Portland-area blogs or even the newspapers from the area, it’s like the end of the world over there. Granted, I know that Portland is not built for that kind of thing, nor are its residents, but I had a great laugh, watching folks try to drive in it. Portland, Eugene, and Salem are ripe with mass transit options — why people aren’t using them up there when it gets like this is beyond me.
- People become retarded when driving in the crap. I drive to work down Hwy 97 to Sunriver from Bend — one of the ugliest stretches of highway this time of year — and am constantly seeing people a) Driving way too fast for the conditions (it’s a frickin’ skating rink, folks) and b) driving with out their headlights on blizzards (like it was on the highway today). I nearly rear-ended a few people today because I couldn’t see them until I nearly clobbered them. They’re in white cars, in white-out weather, with no lights on. And they think because they’re in a big ol’ SUV or pickup that they can still drive the speed limit (or over it). Frickin’ idiots.
- My headlights need cleaning. They’re pretty heavily oxidized, and when I drive home at night, I need all the help I can get. Any recommendations, other than the various solutions suggested on Google? Anything particular work for anybody?
Comments
Someone should do a study of how many people are talking on their cell phones while driving on snow and ice.
You know how in Eugene people drive faster in the rain? That’s because they have webbed feet and like the rain. Bend is different. People here spend more time on their cell phones in the snow because in Bend people have webbed brains, and snow gives them the chance to be EVEN STUPIDER THAN USUAL by distracting themselves beyond DUII impairment levels while facing treacherous conditions.