Ice on the wings

I stepped out my door yesterday morning expecting it to be cold, but totally unprepared for what met me.  Thank goodness I saw the sparkle of the front steps before I dashed down them!  That diamond like sheen was pure ice!

I made it down the steps and carefully made my way around back to where my car was parked to see something that resembled a dark green igloo!  There was probably a quarter inch, or more, of ice encasing my entire automobile.

I could unlock it with the remote, but I could not open the door.  If I had not been committed to taking a group of thirty scouts on a tour of the museum I would have just gone back inside, but it was necessary to get in that car!

Using my key I ran it around the entire driver's door and tugged on the handle again.  It didn't even occur to me that I might rip the rubber seal between the door and the car, but that didn't happen.  It took about fifteen minutes of pulling on that door, running the key back around it and then trying to get my fingers into the crack to pry it open before I got inside.

That was just the beginning.  After starting the engine, ramping up the back window heater and turning on the front defroster, I got out to start clearing the outside only to discover I couldn't get to my snow scraper!  It was on the floor of the back seat and the back door was frozen too.  I had to climb over the front seat far enough to reach the scraper and then the real fun began.

I scraped and chiseled, hacked and chipped away with very little success.  Finally I was so cold it felt like my fingers were falling off so I got back in the car, but the heater still wasn't putting out hot air. Another twenty minutes and the car was drivable.  Barely.

I eased out into traffic and drove to the airport.  Once there I parked my car and walked across the grass rather than the sheet of ice we call a parking lot.  The grass was frozen.  I could hear it cracking and breaking with every step and I felt bad because a lot of it is new and will probably not survive this kind of treatment.

The other tour guides arrived.  The scouts and their parents arrived and we did the tour.  Each of us took ten girls and their families around the inside of the museum and then out into the Air Park.  The Huey helicopter was hopelessly covered in ice.  We couldn't open it, so there went one of our prime attractions.  It would have been a good day to sit inside a helicopter.  Instead I led my little group quickly through the frigid air with the north-pole version of a tour.  Tail hooks, folding wings, Sea Cobra's, all pale at these temperatures.

I pointed out the hose one of our planes uses to refuel up in the air, led my little troop as we walked under the F-14 and let them all holler into the jets at the back to hear, "Daisy Scouts Rock!" come echoing back at us and then we hurried back.

Not one child was sorry to go back inside!