I headed out to the car around 1:45 AM to go to the gym a few miles away. I heard rain pinging off the awning, and I thought to myself, "I didn't think rain was in the forecast." After a short walk to the driveway, I found my car covered with a thin glaze of ice. For a moment, I thought about cancelling my gym trip. A foot scuff on the driveway produced the usual friction-- no ice, so I continued to the gym.
When I exited a couple of hours later, it was a different story. It looked like plain rain. When a step into the parking lot nearly landed me on my arse, I changed my opinion. Main roads still appeared to have some left-over salt from a previous storm. They were okay, so I slowly drove to a mini mart a few miles away for an out of town newspaper and an egg salad sandwich.
It got worse by the mile. The mini mart parking lot hadn't been treated. It was like the rink at PyeongChang. I grabbed my paper and had breakfast in the car. I then pointed it toward home. Scranton streets were horrendous, but the main arteries were at least passable. Wyoming Avenue, to Green Ridge Street, to Blakely Street in Dunmore, to the O'Neill Highway and home.
While the freezing rain was a surprise, I will give road crews and dispatchers credit for springing into action reasonably fast.
That's one of my car's side view mirrors you see below. It's difficult to tell because it was dark when I took the photo, but the ice is rather thick.
