Or Wossamotta Us?
On Dec 26th, ridinruby (Chris) and myself left the San Francisco Bay Area for Granbury Texas to visit my son and his family. Iselbulls (Don) rode down with us as far a Lancester for a little day ride. Although it's a 3600 + mile round trip ride in winter we were expecting cold, rain and snow but got a bit more. The ride out was beautiful, cold but mostly uneventful freeway with some back roads. Had lots of fun with the kids and Gkids but looked forward to returning home.
Leaving Granbury it was a brisk 22 degrees and quickly cooled to the low teens. We had to reduce our speed from 80 down to 55 as the road became covered with a slushy snow and our heated gear couldn't keep up at the higher speed. Entering Abeline Texas on the business loop looking for gas and food the road quickly became covered in thick textured ice. Rideable at 10-20 mph but both feet were often out as outriggers. After sliding into an intersection sideways we pulled into a McDonalds as everything was covered in a sheet ice with a sporadic white topping
After eating and gassing up we gingerly slipped back on to hyw 20 but kept speeds down to 25 as the slush was beginning to freeze up. The next 12 miles remained the same, however the bridges were frozen solid and I had to slow down considerably over them after sliding sideways across a few. Chris, having traction control on his BMW never noticed and trudged on. One would think we would have thought twice after seeing the carnage of semi's and cars in the medians, but after 12 miles the entire freeway became a solid sheet of black ice. Stopped vehicles were sliding forwards and backwards depending on the incline. I managed to drift off the road and stay upright in the median but Chris tried stopping on the black ice and his feet and bike slipped out. It took 6-8 people to upright his bike as the ice was too slippery to gain a foot hold. A state trooper helped us up the frozen grass side median to the familiar textured frozen icy frontage road. Returning to Abeline we stopped at a truck stop for a powwow ony to discover that our phones, which were in an inside pocket of our jackets next to our heated gear, were locked out due to being too cold. After 10 minutes, we were able to get a call out and book a room at the closest motel and slowly made our way there. Most of the motels booked up that evening. Due to the motels proximity to nothing except one closed restaurant, we walked the three mile round trip to purchase our fine 7-11 cuisine after Chris mentioned the Donner Party several times. No cabs were running nor any food delivery.
By The afternoon of day two, New Years day, crews began scraping and spraying the freeway when accidents closed it down, but the shoulders and bridges remained frozen. There was an accident an hour in front of our motel through the end of day three though
Some were just left as they lay
Truck rental places were closed but even traveling by truck would have been hazardous. However the chicken restaurant opened. They grow them big here
They take their religion and music seriously in Texas
Things were still frozen on day three though. We heard portions of hwy 20 to the west were still frozen over.
By day four we decided to make a go of it and headed south to hwy 10 as it was supposed to be warmer that direction. 40 miles of slushy roads and iced over bridges brought us to temps in the low 30's and no more ice or snow. After enduring another hundred miles of muddy roads from the oil trucks it was clear sailing. Hwy 10 medians were still littered with smashed or abandoned cars, trailers, semi's, motor homes, etc.
Unfortunately and due to the ice storm, the majority of west Texas was out of gas. My full gas container came in handy on the way to las cruces New Mexico as I had to use it twice to continue on in search of open stations amidst the hundreds that were closed. Chris's BMW has a much larger tank than my five gallon. The remainder of the trip had beautifull desert sunrises and sunsets, only a toasty low of 22 degrees, but otherwise comparely uneventfull.
What made matters seemingly worse was we were both sick the entire trip home. Otherwise, a perfect, but very memorable trip. Unfortunately neither of us take many pics and the ones shown here do not do justice to the situation.
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Topic: Frostbite Falls? (Read 8620 times)