Sunday Stills (10-17-10 Cars)

This week's Sunday Stills challenge is cars.

Sometimes my house looks more like a parking lot than a driveway. It's called having 5 drivers in the house.

This is what can happen if you're not careful while driving.

And this is when you can't drive, engine problems.

Here's my Lola, my FX45, my baby.

I just love this photo from my archives!!!

For more Sunday Stills, please check here.

Sunday - song: Sunday, artist: David Bowie, album: Heathen

the ice forgets to melt away

Today dawned bright and sunny, so I decided to turn the horses outside.

I am getting in the habit of carrying my camera along with me all the time to see if I can get some lucky shots. I like these lines in the snow. I wonder how they were caused? Notice how the pipe line even goes under the cross fencing. Isn't it neat?
In all my years of backyard horsekeeping, I have never had such dirty stalls. They all refuse to walk outside to pee and poop. As a result, the stalls are a poopy, sloggy mess. Silly horses, they have destroyed their only dry sanctuary by refusing to walk just a few feet out in the snow once in a while. I figured even a few hours out of their stalls could help dry them up a little.

Annie was first out into the snow. I like how her tail looks like it's starting to grow back.
Sometimes, I forget how pretty she looks. If only Yalla! can grow up as nice as her mother. Here's Scout getting up from a roll. He always has such goofy expressions, doesn't he?
For a slight change in topic, the weather has been playing havoc with my cars. A few days ago, my little Hyundai Accent was parked on the driveway next to the other car and in the morning it had slid backwards three feet because it was sitting on ice.
This morning, I cleared the pile of snow from Sally, the Hyundai, and decided to drive her into town, to work. I've been driving Lola, my Infiniti FX45, a lot this winter, because she has all wheel drive and handles pretty well in the snow, but I am always having to buy gas. That's the difference between 19 mpg and 36 mpg when you drive 60-80 miles a day.

The other day I was in town with Sally, the Hyundai, when it snowed and I had to drive home on snow packed roads. I have to drive up several hills on my way home and, on one of them, a two lane highway, I lost traction and only managed to go about a foot a minute forward. This was actually good because I was afraid of sliding off the road into a ditch. After about 15 minutes of this stop and go game I was playing with my car, a sheriff pulled up behind me. I was moving so slowly that he came over to ask me if I needed help. I told him I thought I would make it because I was almost at the top of the hill by then. He stayed behind me until I topped the hill and I did manage to get home but I don't drive her in snowy conditions if there are other options. But today looked bright and sunny and one of my neighbors had cleared the main road so I only needed to get down my looooonnnnnng, snowy driveway. Of course, I had to either back down my long, curvy roadway or turn around. I opted to turn around. I backed up into the snow and then moved forward. Good, it's working, I'm not going to get stuck. I backed up some more, carefully, because there is a tree to the front and my Infiniti in the driveway. All right, forward now. Come on. Forward. Uh oh, we're not moving. Stuck!

Silly me! Why did I think I should try this? Because my son made it out yesterday with his little Saturn, that's why. But, his Saturn is a standard transmission and has brand new tires whereas my little Hyundai has old tires. I turned off the car and started Lola. I got her out and drove around Sally, and pointed towards the road, and then I went back inside to wake up my son for help. My two neighbors saw my predicament while they were walking their dogs so, between the four of us, we got Sally safely backed up onto the driveway to wait for another day. I thanked them all profusely and then headed off to work in my trusty metal steed.

The Ice Forgets to Melt Away - song: Sell me a Coat, artist: David Bowie, album: David Bowie

All the cars

This is my driveway. Let me count the cars:

1. 2003 Infiniti FX45, my pride and joy! Her name is Lola, cuz she's a "muscle car".


2. 2000 Ford F150, a farm truck mostly, to carry trash, pull trailers, get wood and hay. Goes by the name of "Scott's truck".


3. 1997 Saturn SL, my commuter car, 35+ mpg, nicknamed Ciss, for Chop Shop Special. Not really, but I just bought her from a dealer that fixes up old cars for resale by taking parts from others. Hopefully, she'll be a good one. I've only had her a week.


4. 2000 Saturn SL, my son's commuter car. He calls her 1K-N, "the car of a thousand noises".


5. 1999 Ford Ranger, my son's "fun" truck, "Rez", because it came from the Gallup area.


6. 1994 Ford Explorer, aka "GDK or god#am car", re license plate initials. Actually, this has been an awesome car. I bought her new and she now has over 320,000 miles on the original engine. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, the axle on the front tire broke so we're trying to decide whether to fix or junk.

???- Still need a car for my daughter. She has been driving my new, old Saturn since the Explorer broke.

All the cars - song: It's gonna be me (David Bowie) album: Young Americans- bonus tracks