The things about winter that I actually hate...

Slushification. Is that a word? No, not really.

The temperature upon departure was 34 degrees. It was on its way down, and we're currently just below freezing here in KC. What happens is that it snows, then public works comes out and salts the everloving crap out of the roads, then the temperature bobbles between freezing and not-quite-freezing for weeks on end. The end result is an unpredictable blend of black ice, re-frozen plow debris, standing water, grimy slush, and difficult-to-navigate paths.

Ah, the difficult-to-navigate paths. Yes, people still walk when it's snowy, and they use the sidewalks and multi-use paths. When lamenting the various gnarly results of human- or temperature-altered snowfall, I forgot the icy piles of hard-packed divots amid powdery or sticky snow that you find on foot-trodden thoroughfares. Much like glare ice, the frozen boulders thrown onto the sidewalks by snow plows, and the soupy disaster caused by a day above freezing, it's just one more thing that gets on my nerves. These things are mere technicalities, though. I still love riding in winter, but sometimes I have to earn my indulgence.

If it would simply stay below freezing after a snow, we would have a lot easier and cleaner go at things. This morning, however, sucked. Briny slush gets thrown everywhere and a very thin mud-like solution of road grime, sand, and dissolved potassium chloride forms a messy, quick-drying film on everything in sight.

Why can't it just get cold and stay there?

Random Tunage:
Morningwood - Nth Degree
Prodigy - Breathe