Another American Adventure: a solid sheet of ice

Thursday, December 29, 2011

a solid sheet of ice

Don't be fooled by the lack of snow, this parking lot is a solid sheet of ice. Actually, the guy from the upper parking lot warned me. Told me that the only way to get across it was to walk around it on the grass. Below is evidence of where my feet slid out from under me!

4 comments:

BarbaraDecember 29, 2011 at 2:06 PM
It is really cold here -- -15 C at the moment (5 F). I went to put out the garbage last night and it did not feel icy, thank goodness. I am still slightly sore from last week's tumble. I also advise to walk on the grassy area or on snow. Do they sell crampons (I can't think of a more common term) to attach to your boots for better traction?
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BarbaraDecember 29, 2011 at 9:02 PM
Are you OK, beth?
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Sally ClayDecember 30, 2011 at 3:16 AM
Scary!
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beth cioffolettiDecember 30, 2011 at 3:49 AM
Yep, I'm fine. Just a gentle reminder to be careful around here! Actually, I have an innate (and probably somewhat exaggerated) fear of "Black Ice". Comes from living in FL for so many years, where such things are unheard of.
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"In those first days, people said, a squirrel could run the long length of Pennsylvania without ever touching the ground. In those first days, the woods were white oak and chestnut, hickory, maple, sycamore, walnut, wild ash, wild plum, and white pine. The pine grew on the ridgetops where the mountains' lumpy spines stuck up and their skin was thinnest.

"The wilderness was uncanny, unknown. Benjamin Franklin had already invented his stove in Philadelphia by 1753, and Thomas Jefferson was a schoolboy in Virginia; French soldiers had been living in forts along Lake Erie for two generations. But west of the Alleghenies in western Pennsylvania, there was not even a settlement, not even a cabin. No Indians lived there, or even near there.

"Wild grapevines tangled the treetops and shut out the sun. Few songbirds lived in the deep woods. Bright Carolina parakeets - red, green, and yellow - nested in the dark forest. There were ravens then, too. Woodpeckers rattled the big trees' trunks, ruffed grouse whirred their tail feathers in the fall, and every long once in a while a nervous gang of empty-headed turkeys came hustling and kicking through the leaves - but no one heard any of this, no one at all."

Annie Dillard, An American Childhood.