Puddles and Potholes

A game that Winnipeggers play at this time of year is called Puddles and Potholes.  Essentially, it means driving somewhere in the city with the sole aim of avoiding major damage to the front end of their car, including alignment, ball joints, and tires.  Unfortunately, there aren't too many winners, except maybe the car repair shops.  In a short drive to run some errands this afternoon, I managed to avoid all but one big pothole.  I hope it didn't do any serious damage.  Time will tell.

The fun part, on one major street, was slowing down to navigate through a section of curb-to-curb water (plugged storm water drains everywhere!).  Just as I was half way through the water trap, some fool in a pickup truck raced past me in the other lane and covered my Escape in dirty water.  You can image his 6' high wake coming over my car and me putting my windshield wipers on high so I could try to see ahead.  I can only hope he filled his engine compartment with water and, if he gets home, that he'll be unable to start his vehicle in the morning when all of that wetness is frozen in place on his wiring.

It'll be an interesting evening, weather-wise.  There is a winter storm warning for most of the southern part of our province.  Winnipeg is supposed to be on the northern edge of the storm (a Colorado low) which is centred on our southern Manitoba boundary with the great US of A.  We certainly don't need any more water in the Winnipeg area.  The ground is already super-saturated.  Our sump pump has already started working after its winter rest.  I expect it'll be going more-or-less non-stop soon.  Ah, life on the Flatlands ...