Mud worse than snow

If you're going to move to Vermont you've got to come to terms with mud. Vermont's mud season is typically in April but apparently we can get spells right in the middle of winter that'll be just the same. Anytime temperatures get above freezing for more than 24 hours it turns the roads to pure pig heaven. It's a vehicle's worse nightmare. I come from a pretty muddy state, but nothing like Vermont. Most of the roads here are made from sand and crushed limestone, and it makes for a squirrely trip anywhere. I can't imagine any other state that isn't harder on a vehicle than this one. I find my Matrix becomes unrecognizable on a regular bases, becoming caked in a salty mix of whatever it is they spray on the roads, and the sand they spread on the back roads. My car is red but you could hardly tell, and god help a cop trying to read my license plate. Could be a good thing. Not that you'd see a cop in these parts, so thank goodness crime is non-existent.

Yesterday, my wife and I took a 45 min trip South of here to Lebanon New Hampshire, a small city that has commercial amenities to purchase what we need, in this case something for fleas. You'd think with these temperatures we wouldn't have to worry about fleas, but no, we do...er the poor dogs. Fleas these days seem to be becoming more and more immune to whatever pesticide we decide to splash them with. All of them becoming very pricey too, only to find they did little in the way of killing them. Many a product I've spent money on only to find these damn parasites leaping and frolicking on the dogs. I added biospot spray and medicine to the product line, a combination that cost me about $40. We still had comfortis for the Chihuahua, but that requires a vet trip and a prescription. Works as long as you don't have a massive infestation. We did back in Pearlington Mississippi, but so far not in Vermont. Anyway, this trip down to Lebanon takes us several miles on Vermont's back roads - all very muddy from the recent warm up. My wife gripped the "oh shit" bar with white knuckles as our little car slipped and jostled uncontrollably from one rut to the next. The trick was keeping up your speed as not to bog down, but slow enough not to lose control. Really dangerous when other traffic shows up, both of you have to perilously navigate the muddy ruts without smacking into each other. For being a little afternoon errand run it's quite the adrenaline rush.

Without a doubt I prefer frozen back roads - icy and hard, then to deal with 6 inches of mud. Once we made it to the interstate, the local I-89 heading south, the car's steering wheel vibrated terribly at speeds of 65mph. Why? Well simple, all that mud riding causes mud to cake in behind the front wheels and it throws them out of balance. Fun huh? Nope, give me snow and ice any day.