On Tuesday I thought I was heading down to Dallas for a quick in and out trip. But that changed up big time yesterday when it started spitting ice and drizzle early. And it went from bad to worse. Now the whole area is covered with a half inch of ice and the power is out. And they have no infrastructure here to deal with winter weather.

The whole area is pretty much shut down. I haven’t seen a plow yet. I don’t think they have many. I went by a auto parts store yesterday to get some anti-gel stuff for the diesel and there was a sign on the door that said they had no ice scrapers or de-icer. At Home Depot, there were selling four Dura Flame logs for $25. I saw a guy by four boxes. I asked him if he thought that would hold up for a day and he said he didn’t know or really care. He just wanted to appease his wife.

The woman, Melissa that helps Sue’s mom out, doesn’t have any heat in her car, no defrost, because her heater core was leaking. She was trying to remove the ice from her windshield with a plastic cap off a jug. I told her to use the windshield wiper fluid to loosen it up, but they don’t use wiper fluid that goes below zero here. I had a jug of Rain-X fluid that went down to -25. I told her to start trying the wiper fluid after the engine melted the wiper supply hoses. I’m going to hook back up her heater hoses and try some Bars Leak this afternoon to see if that will stop it up and get it functioning again.

On the internet, it shows the electricity going back online at 7am tomorrow. Man, that seems like a long time, but I guess there are a quarter million people with no electricity here.

I’m going to install some grab bars in Sue’s mom’s shower today. I spent a fair amount of time crawling around on my chest in the attic trying to find the location of the studs under the ceramic tile. Man, was I itchy last night. I’m going to be using a cordless drill, so the lack of electricity isn’t an issue.

Okay, that is about it from frosty Dallas.

It took quite a while to get this frozen mass off the front of my van.

I saw lots of these on the short drive to electricity at Starbucks.

Starbucks was pretty iced in too. They don’t really have any rock salt or snow shovels in this city.

This is my buddy Rod Lake’s dog, Camo.

Rod had “an extra” Zip 404 taking up space in his garage. He just moved from Allen down to White Rock Lake. He’s gonna have to start riding more now that the White Rock loop is at his doorstep.

This was Wednesday, nearly 80 degrees, big change.

I’m pretty much stuck in Dallas. Someone left a comment yesterday that said something like, it shouldn’t be a surprise since they have been predicting this ice storm for the past few days. And I agree that is true. What isn’t predictable, or at least wasn’t obvious to me, is the real lack of infrastructure to deal with this here. Nearly anywhere else in the country, this wouldn’t be any big deal.

All the roads are super hazardous. The George Bush Toll Road is worse than nearly any gravel road I’ve ever been on. No one has any snow shovels or salt. Nearly no sidewalks are cleared, so they are solid ice.

The power is out in Richardson and I recommended that Sue take her mom to a hotel. The temperature in her house was already into the 40’s and the power might not be turned on until tomorrow still. By the time we decided that, nearly all the hotels were full. We ended up driving up to Plano to a pretty nice place, the NYLO. It is ultra modern and kind of hip. Trying to get Sue’s mom from the car into the hotel was a chore. It was solid ice right up to where you could grab the handle. I don’t understand the liability risks these commercials properties are willing to assume here. In Kansas, it is a law that you need to clear the sidewalks on your property in a timely manner, something like 8 hours. Absolutely no one here is clearing anything. I don’t think there is anything here to use for it.

It is kind of lucky that this is a weekend, so people can just hunker down and sit it out. I really don’t know how many people are without electricity, but it might take a while to get it turned back on. The electric trucks aren’t moving any faster than anyone else around here, which is really slow.

Anyway, back to the title of the post. My legs are wasted today. I kind of twisted my knee getting out of the car yesterday on ice. Now, walking on ice, I feel super unstable, which is pretty normal I guess. I can’t believe how wasted my thighs and hamstrings from trying to stabilize myself on ice.

Walking Bromont this morning, he fell down twice while walking on grass with ice on it. I didn’t sink through, walked right on top of the ice on grass. It is so solid. It isn’t going to thaw here for a while.

The Kansas State Cyclocross Championships are tomorrow in Topeka, just 3 miles from my house. I was planning on being there. I really hadn’t planned to race, but you never know about that. Unless something around here goes a lot better, I doubt I’m going to be in Kansas for the race tomorrow.

This was the George Bush Toll Road last night driving up to Plano.

This guy went out running about the last chance he could have. The roads are 100 times worse now.

Bromont’s legs are jittery too. He is walking pretty timidly on the ice.

The Bar’s Leaks seemed to work on Melissa’s heat core yesterday. Repairs like this are always a little suspect for a while.