I feel I must first apologize to all of you who have been waiting forever for me to post. Well, THE WAIT IS OVER.
I recently had the opportunity to travel west through some of the mid-west and southern states. Not the least of which was Arkansas. Now while we were there they made a big deal about POSSIBLY getting snow, lots of it. They were claiming up to 3 inches. I laughed when I heard only 3 inches. Anyone from snowy PA knows that 3 inches is simply a pebble to a bulldozer. Well come morning we got up and come to find that it had not snowed 3 inches but only drizzled a little bit. Of course I assumed that a little drizzle on the interstate was nothing. So we headed north.
The first hour or so was not too bad, they were back roads and were somewhat Icy, but nothing an experienced driver from the north couldn't handle, or so I thought. The roads kept getting worse but we finally got to the interstate. Unfortunately they were even worse. We ended up driving about 250 miles that day, that day being about 11 hours of driving. Most of it was at the whopping speed of 15 MPH. The interstates were nothing short of a sheet of ice (probably an inch thick in some places), and once every few miles we would come across a small patch of visible pavement. This pavement was most commonly covered with "black ice".
Now to give the state of Arkansas credit we did see a few (very few) trucks out putting sand down. Now, sand works great at the beach. But these roads were icy in 29 degree weather.
Also to their credit we saw two pieces of snow removal equipment all day (sand trucks apparently are not commonly fitted with snowplows on the front). They included 1 (yes just one) snow plow, and one decrepit, laboring road grader that was not much bigger than a pickup, and looked like it could hardly turn its own 6 wheels. We saw the cloud of black smoke it was producing long before the machine itself, in fact, we never did see the machine until we were directly beside it while passing it.
To finish this story we finally got a motel and the next morning the roads were no better than the day before, UNTIL we got 10 miles across the line to Tennessee. Then we were able to drive, oh, lets say about 70 MPH at least, God bless Tennessee for their 70 speed limit.
NOTE TO ARKANSAS:
1-Salt that is spread on roads will melt ice.
2-Sand does not melt ice (until the sun comes out, or the temperature gets above 32)
3-One grader and 1 snowplow is not adequate to plow all the ice from the Arkansas roads (Invest in one or two more)
4-Commuters traveling through your state do not enjoy long delays because of unnecessary ice on the roads, although it might boost the economy. (I am sure the towing, body repair and Hotel industries did quite well for a few days)
5-Your problems un-doubtedly stem from the Clintons originating in your state.
6-Finally, I plan to vacation elsewhere next time. Smoggy LA, Slums of India, Sahara desert and a summer in Anarctica all sound more appealing all of the sudden.
I hope to be posting pictures shortly so stay tuned for more updates.
