driving on ice

i had an utterly interesting "first" in my driving experience this afternoon while taking out the trash. before i continue, though, i'll set the scene. i woke up this morning to most of my yard being covered with snow-like ice. when i say snow-like, it means that the only thing about it that's like snow is its appearance. while touching it, you realize that it's much harder and thicker than snow. for some reason, where i live we just got this rotten icy downfall during the night, while the rest of the city of greenwood recieved full-fledged snow. anyhow, back to the story: my mom wanted me to drive the van to the dump to drop the trash off. neither of us knew if it would actually be open in this weather, but i decided to go anyways. as i drove, i realized that in order to maintain safe control of the vehicle, i had to limit my speed to about 25 miles an hour. if i absent-mindedly drifted to anywhere above 35, the van would skid around on the road... which happened more than once. when i was about 2 miles away from my house, and two miles from the dump ( a perfect place for something like this to happen ) i noticed that the visibility on my windshield was becoming awful. apparently, the tiny drops of water that were falling on the glass were rapidly freezing. i tried using my windshield wipers to clear my vision, which only made it worse. it came to a point that i had to roll down the window and stick my head out, braving the fierce arctic winds so that i could see where i was going. i was finally able to skid and turn into a back road so that i could try to wipe off my windshield. "wiping off my windshield" consisted of me using my fingernails to break the impossibly frozen substance that simply wouldn't remove itself from my van. finally, after contracting hypothermia, i was able to clear about one square inch of somewhat transparent glass so that i would be able to reach the dump safely.

luckily, once i began driving again, i instinctively tried my wipers again, and to my delight, they began to clear up the rest of the windshield... and as it began to rain more, more of the ice melted. i made it home safely, somehow.