Today, we went to town for lunch and got to experience almost every possible road condition in one afternoon. When we left at 10:30 or so, we went down our private road, which James had plowed. Considering the current general condition of the road, it wasn’t too bad, since the snow had filled in some of the smaller craters.
When we got out to the county road, we discovered that the county plows and graders hadn’t been out this way yet, so we were driving through 5-inches of powder. (That type of thing can be fun on skis, but it’s less fun in a car.) Farther along, we encountered the grader, so apparently the road department has been busy.
We crawled down the hill to the valley where we encountered slush. Sometimes you will hear references to roads with a “patchy snow floor.” In this case, we had a patchy snow floor with slush on top.
By the time we got to Highway 200, the road was just wet. The sun was out, so by the time we headed home, the highway and valley roads were not only clear, but also completely dry. Up in our neighborhood, the snow has been largely scraped off, so the roads have returned to mud-bog, slop conditions.
North Idaho roads are a lot like the weather, just wait a few minutes and they’ll change.