A Nice Walk To Work, beats a traffic jam!

[Duxxy]

I'm a native So. Cal. girl, how do you get cars to run in such extreme weather? Is there special oil you use? How long does it take to warm up your car before you can drive it? How much earlier do you need to get up in the am to shovel out your driveway? I have an innate curiosity about almost everything.

we have these cool things called Block Heaters - they keep your engine block warm so that the car will start. You plug it into an outdoor outlet when it gets to about -15C or so. We do have cold weather oil. My husband usually lets the car warm up for about 10 mins .. in that time he shovels what ever snow was left behind the car by the snow plow. We don't have a long driveway so it's not usually an issue, my husband can usually clear the driveway and stairs in 30 mins tops .. but it depends on the density and accumulation of the snow.
Sometimes the hardest part about winter is finding somewhere to throw all of that snow when you are shovelling.

[roseskid]

Duxxy, thanks for the info. I've always wondered about these things and just never asked before. Where I live, it's very cold if it's around 40F (we are definitely wusses), and rain is sometimes a problem because we've been in a drought for so long, most people don't know how to drive in the rain, and continue to drive too fast, too close together, and eventually we have some pretty nasty car accidents. Mainly, though, we have heat to contend with. The inside of cars can get beastly hot, and sometimes stupid people leave pets and children in them, and they don't survive. But for the most part, we are a very spoiled group of people. I think I'd like to live in snow country at some point during my life, though. A change of seasons would be nice, since there's not much to look at in So. Cal. from one season to the next. I've hiked in snow before, and my dogs love it!

[joeguy]

Do you do laundry, joeguy?

and get to run my hands through your delicates..YOU BET!!!!!

I had to learn was single for 38 years.

What is the weather like there now joeguy?

thats what it loooks like now, that was posted by a new zealand worker from the New zealand antarctica base just last week. the sun is just now coming up from being midnight dark for the last 5 months or so and around -10 degrees F for an average temp