Iowa State: Blizzard #3 (Fate laughs)

So I wrote previously about the Thanksgiving blizzard/ice storm of 1985.

Fate waited until 1985’s storm was something in the deep crevasse of my mind…and then came for me.

December 16, 2016. That was a Thursday–end of Finals Week for my oldest two children, the oldest in Ames, the other at the 2nd best ISU in Normal, IL. Neither child at that point had a car on campus–neither felt a pressing need to have one around. Erick was right on a Cy Ride stop and Brigitte’s women’s fraternity was in the middle of campus.

The weather report was that there was going to be a brief snowstorm that day. That’s no biggie–drive steady, pay attention, and eventually you get through it all. I wasn’t worried–and I looked forward to some time with the kids in the car.

So I picked my daughter up late morning. Everything was sunny in Normal. We had a hiccup on the way, had to stop since she wasn’t feeling well for a bit, but after a delay (maybe 30 minutes) on the road we went! The drive to Ames was uneventful though the temperature was falling and had dropped below freezing by the time we were approaching Ames. There was also a little bit of snow falling–more than dandruff but not enough to be dangerous. We loaded up Erick’s stuff, piled in the car and started on our way.

By the point we were pulling out of the apartment complex’s parking lot though, the snow was mixed with some rain. Snow–okay. Rain–okay, but snow AND rain AND the temperature under freezing…now we’ve got a problem because the temperature was still dropping and still rain.

A big problem.

As we reached the interstate, I started having snow accumulate on the hood and windshield. I went to use the wipers–no fluid. Either the nozzles were blocked or the fluid was iced over…so now I’m driving with a mucky windshield. There’s no way I’m making it home safely like this so we went into a Ford dealership in Des Moines.

They were unhelpful and said they couldn’t identify the problem–they’d need until the next day to do that. (Even though I told them the problem…it’s probably because it was near closing time and they didn’t want to hang out due to the storm). Turned away, we went back out on the road. The one good thing from the stop–the heat inside the maintenance bay had been enough on its own to unclog the wipers’ fluid.

Back on the interstate. It’s dark now–about 530pm. The rain stopped–now it was snow. This was not the snow of a brief snowstorm. This was thick–reminding me of the Star Wars hyperspace effect as we drove through it…almost hypnotic. It was thick/wet enough that the wipers were now accumulating ice–so they could not clean the windshield effectively. The fluid would help for a moment and then freeze in its own layer on the windshield. The only way to work with this was to have the front defrost inside the car turned up to full–and at about 75°. This made the front/top of the passenger cabin warm…but vents/seals/windows were letting cold in so that everyone was half-sweating, half-freezing.

We pulled over twice along the way to scrape off the windshield wipers and windshield–which let us get further down the road until we reached Iowa City…probably about 9pm. We pulled into town for food but every drive thru was crammed. No luck–back out on the road we went.

NOTE: The conditions sucked 100% but I didn’t feel endangered while driving. I didn’t tailgate, didn’t speed, NOTHING like that. It’s odd writing this now–because my description of the weather is less than the weather really was–but I really didn’t feel I was risking our safety.

We got to the Quad Cities, wound up detouring onto 280 since I-80 had had an accident. Eventually near the QC Airport, there was another accident on the 80/280 onramp, so we had to detour via other roads. THAT was the one point where I was nervous–because two-lane roads aren’t straight and they aren’t the first to get plowed.

We kept going–with a couple more stops to scrape wipers and windshield. Erick had the idea to stop and purchase a watergun, filling it with antifreeze, ducktaping it to the windshield and shooting it from inside the car to keep everything in order. –it was a weird world of conversation…but we were able to talk. The kids kept Julie informed of our progress.

Eventually we reached Mahomet, just west of Champaign, IL, and the snow stopped. Finally. We filled up with gas, got some food, and then hit the road again, finally able to drive the speed limit.

We got home around 2am. Central Illinois to Ames and back–19 hour drive. Man…do I understand Dave’s dad from 1985 better now.