I hate winter

As you can probably tell by the last entry, THE WINTER BLAST has officially hit, and I am hating life right now. The snow is awful, and the ice is worse.

This morning's commute was TERRIBLE. I didn't even realize it was snowing when I looked out my window at 5:30 this morning, so I went back to bed and got up at my normal time. Yes, I have to check every morning at 5:30 to see if it dumped on us during the night, because it can take me an hour and a half to get to work. Or even more, but if it does then I just come in late because that is just ridiculous. So anyway, I checked at 5:30 like normal, but either I was so tired I didn't notice, or it had just started snowing and nothing had accumulated yet. There was only ever 1 or maybe 2 inches of snow, so it's not like there was 8 inches that I didn't notice.

The problem was the wind. It was blowing everything around, and blowing the car around, and it made it feel very nerve-wracking. But I made it almost all the way to work with no issues, and by the time I got to Route 2 it was just two ruts of dry pavement. You know, when your wheels are straddling a band of snow? And there was snow when you tried to change lanes, of course. But the roads were fine, especially if you just planted yourself in one lane and didn't change.

That is, until I hit Sandusky. And then all hell broke loose. It was like World War III! I didn't even know the conditions had changed because everything looked the same, but then when I was passing a big semi that was just CREEPING along, his backwash started me rocking and then I felt like I was going to lose control. The car sashayed back and forth and the adrenaline just dumped into my system. My thighs went numb, and my shoulders got all tingly. And then I saw a car in the ditch.

It was the first of many cars in the ditches. I probably saw 10 cars on the side of the road in the four mile stretch between the first of the Sandusky exits and the last Sandusky exit that is the one I take. And the cars weren't just "in the ditch." Some were down in a gully, or backwards facing the wrong way, and some had obviously come from the other side of the freeway because you could see their tracks through the 20-yard-wide center median.

This did not help my adrenaline situation. I still feel shaky!

But I made it to work without further incident, which was good. I didn't have any voluntary panic reactions (i.e., adrenaline is non-voluntary. I didn't stomp on my breaks or jerk the wheel, I mean to say). And although I could feel the car sliding around, as soon as I slowed down everything felt much better. I hope it was skill, and not just me getting lucky, that got me here in one piece.

When I got to work (15 minutes late, but who's counting?) everyone was so nice! They were concerned with my drive, and sympathetic to the fact that I'm not used to it. They even admitted it was pretty scary today, which was a relief (sometimes I'm not sure if I'm being a baby). Although they were all laughing about the cars in the ditches, and I was still throroughly spooked about feeling like I was almost one of them.