WOW....That WOULD get your attention all right.
My daughter and I traveled from Southern CA to GA in Feb. 2003 - she was relocating there and I was along for the ride and moral support (and also for gas/motels/food etc).
Outside of Abilene, my daughter asked me, “What’s that on the windshield - I said, “that’s ice”. “Well, how do I get rid of it?” Southern CA freeways weren’t where you got experience traveling in/on ice.
I told her to turn her defrosters on and “let’s get off the highway.” Easier said than done as by then everything was covered with ice and exit ramps were either UP a hill or DOWN with stop signs at the end of each and unable to stop...easily!!! I grew up and drove in upstate NY as a teenager and drove in snow but never ice so I wasn’t one to give much help to her except what we did - get off the road!!!!
Long story short, we made it to a motel, spent the night. We had to walk carefully to and from the car to the motel room. The next morning we saw 18 wheelers on the road so we figured it was safe and ventured out and followed in their TIRE TRACKS in the ice but it grew worse so we got off at another tricky exit ramp into Fort Worth and there we spent the next 3 days at the first motel/hotel we came to.
Expensive but I didn’t care - we were OFF the road!!! We had the whole downtown area to ourselves and other stranded travelers - walking carefully on ice to nearby restaurants for meals. ODDLY, the expensive motel/hotel didn’t have a restaurant. Courtyard Marriott or whatever, I think???
The day before traveling INTO TX was clear and sunny - we checked weather before we ever left home in CA - nothing pointed to that kind of weather...
I knew people who always said it takes forever to get through TX on a motor trip but I never thought it would take THAT long...
My husband and I have since moved to GA and we’ve had some ice storms here but being retired, we don’t have to BE anywhere!
I am originally from Michigan where we always got lots of snow - like sometimes six foot drifts at the front door. But, the first year I experienced Black Ice I was in Dallas. It was in 1978 or so. Everything had up to a 1/2 inch of ice on it, roads, bushes, trees. Since there was ice everywhere I put on my snowmobile suit and my skates and I skated in the middle of the road because there was no traffic. I was doing pretty good and people would open their doors and yell out at me, like cheering me on. Until I came up to one of my neighbors who had thrown sand down his driveway and into the street. That is the only time I fell. What a noob and I told him that. I have not worn my snowmobile suit since.
Your comments made me remember the old saying: “The sun has riz, The sun has set, And here we are, in Texas yet.
I think it was on a postcard I mailed in the early 1950’s.