Aka What Winter Looks Like, aka Why An Outdoor Game is a Ways Away Yet
I took these photos this week while walking to work. Every year we have this on going discussion with my brother in law (who lives in Halifax and is an expert on EVERYTHING). It basically goes like this "you really don't need all wheel drive, front wheel drive does almost as well and uses less gas and any way it's not a problem once they plow the streets", "but they don't plow the streets", 'yeaj but once they plow them it's not a problem"....
Anyway we've had 1.4m of snow and we rarely see a snow plow on anything but a major artery. So the snow gets compressed down (on our street the multiply daily school bus trips do it nicely) into 4-6" of solid ice. Think of Sedimentary Rock being transformed into Metamorphic Rock and you get hte idea.
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| Typical side street moonscape driving. The university student in the background gives context of the snow bank and drift heights. |
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| A neighbour cleared the sidewalk (that's a pavement to you Brits) down to bare concrete. At the curbside (sic there is a curb in this photo) she found that her sidewalk was a couple of inches below the current driving surface. |
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| Here the city has cleared the ice away from a manhole cover - note the 6" drop below driving level. This one sits in the middle of an intersection of two side streets. |
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| Tough to see but for most of the winter there was a car parked here. Note the second car under the pile of snow on the left. Because the car provided shelter - the bottom of the hole is the original paved street level. The top of the hill is the current driving level. |
Geeze! This what Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota looked like from the end of November through mid-March the first year I lived there during grad school. And the flip-side was, of course, terrible street surfaces during the spring and summer months.
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
Stokes Schwartz
I remember that winter. My Trig Prof brought it up a couple of months ago. Most aren't that bad-although the head of MNDot got fired/resigned a few weeks into this winter for not getting the job done. BTW-we're expecting a foot of wet snow Monday & Tuesday. Wish you were here. =]
DeleteI hope that Subaru is paying you well for the product placement! Our own Honda CRV (4wd but plodding) and Saab Aero (fast and frugal) seems to be working well. Subarus seem to be quite pricey to buy and run here in the UK, otherwise I might well have one.
ReplyDeleteTim
DeleteIf I had to pay what you had to pay for petrol I'd be driving a Smart Car or my bike! We have a small Nissan as our second car but with front wheel drive the squirrel gets bogged down in winter.
Cheers and stay warm
Peter
PS We pay $1.11 per litre for gas right now.
That sort of price makes a 25mpg car seem attractive! A 2.5 litre Legacy wagon?
DeleteOur Honda does about 30mpg and the recently arrived (diesel) Saab is averaging just shy of 50. The old Saab did a tolerable 34mpg so even with diesel costing over £1.40 (robbery!) a litre I'm spending less to fuel my car.
Tim
DeleteWe drive the legacy's little brother the Impreza (and it's the bigger of our two vehicles). Winter MPG gets badly distorted by the time spent idling/warming up and needing extra oomph through snow, but even in the worst of times it gets 18mpg. That goes up to around 35 even midwinter when I take it on a highway haul to go skiing.
Truth be told the cheap gas has its downsides as there are an awful lot of super duty 4WD pickups on the road here. I shudder to think what mileage they get.
A few years back we were vacationing in Banff. I was gassing up the Versa (having gone from Canmore to Jasper and back on one tank) next to a motorhome. He wanted to trade gas bills. I said I would if we could trade hotel bills!
Cheers
PD
PS I like your old stuff post but being old stuff myself couldn't figure out where the comment button was on your new style page
In the UK only boy racers have Imprezas...
DeleteThe comments are at the foot of the page - can you have another look and let me know what's happening. If there's a problem I'll need to look into it.
Tim
DeleteYou're messing with my aged brain. I went to comment and you moved the goalpost much closer by shifting back to the old style - it's like the new Coke all over again.
Yes the WRX and STI models are for the fast and furious crew here, but the base model is a bog standard family car. Try calling that out to one of your boy racers next time you pull up to one at a stop light!
Cheers
PD
Well you know you wouldn't need it on the bare pavement we have back here in Nova Scotia. Not quite ready yet for naval games in the park though.
ReplyDeleteBare pavemnt with no snow on it - I've heard of that!
DeleteWell, our 9 straight days of 33+ deg C pale in comparison (though I would have traded at least one of them in for one of yours)!
ReplyDelete