Ice, Ice, Baby

Something is definitely wrong. It is way too warm here. It is hovering right around the freezing point, which is an amazingly treacherous temperature to be driving around in. Just right for the road to have frozen, but for the top layer to be starting to melt for maximum slipperiness. This is what people in Maine call "glare ice".

I am not a huge fan of driving in any weather (recall that I am a closet environmentalist: I prefer to take Michael to school on the tandem bike) but this has got to be the worst time for driving. They don't use salt on the roads here, and don't use many rocks, either. They prefer to allow people to drive over the snow until it is really packed down. That way, there's no need to plow, either.

When Steve and I got here almost seven years ago, we couldn't believe that the roads were unplowed. We mentioned this to the woman who ran our B&B. "Hrm," she said thoughtfully. "They plow it right down to the pavement a couple times a year."

I remember thinking Isn't that what plowing IS - right down to the pavement???

In I**vik, it's actually against the law to turn left on the main street. I couldn't understand why until the day I turned left in November in my little Honda Civic. The cars wear ruts in the road, and if you turn left, you scrape out the bottom of your vehicle. Nobody's ever confirmed this for me, but I'm certain that town council created this bylaw so they wouldn't be sued for damage to people's cars.

[Updated: I was popping up on a search engine because there was a community name in this post. I've added some asterisks so I don't show up on the search engine.]