I love frost heaves.
Frost heaves are the offspring of a marriage between dry cold spells and warmer melty spells. This type of weather-veerage creates issues with the roadbed under the asphalt and big ass bumps are thus temporarily born. It has something to do with the cycle of melting and freezing, the moisture keeps increasing due to the melting and the ice builds up due to the freezing and before you know it, you have a frost heave of wondrous proportions. Either it’s the dips which make your stomach drop into your pelvic region or it’s the rollercoaster variety bump where if you are going fast enough will make everything in your car levitate momentarily and your heart leap into your throat. My all-time favorite is going over several (of both types) in a row with a Dukes of Hazzard-like hill at the end and I know just the place.
I know frost heaves are not the best exercise for your car, but I cannot keep away from them. My job has me travel a lot and I’m always choosing the route that has the most heaves. The older roads are better, especially when the frost heave has been years in the making. It starts out relatively small the first year and if the road hasn’t been repaired or updated, by year three, that heave is huge when this time of year comes ‘round.
Don’t get me wrong, heaves are only temporary, which means they subside once the cold weather goes away. But the potential is always there. And once a frost heave has been started, it doesn’t go away unless it’s been eradicated by the foot-dragging Department of Transportation (the same department that likes to fill in potholes with fresh asphalt the day before it rains thus ensuring the potholes vomit up the asphalt, becoming bigger and deeper as a result).
Once I found this road that was entirely frost heaved from start to finish. God, what fun! But then after about the 3nd year, the community raised enough of a ruckus and it was scraped and re-paved. Bummer.
Each town posts little fluorescent signs that say “FROST HEAVE” on wooden stakes a couple hundred feet before the larger ones (the ones that have the potential to damage vehicles if speed is too fast) or clusters as a friendly warning. It’s also almost time for those signs that limit vehicle weights to start appearing. Apparently if heavy trucks drive over the heaves continually, it makes them worse.
Better! in my opinion.
Frost heaves are the offspring of a marriage between dry cold spells and warmer melty spells. This type of weather-veerage creates issues with the roadbed under the asphalt and big ass bumps are thus temporarily born. It has something to do with the cycle of melting and freezing, the moisture keeps increasing due to the melting and the ice builds up due to the freezing and before you know it, you have a frost heave of wondrous proportions. Either it’s the dips which make your stomach drop into your pelvic region or it’s the rollercoaster variety bump where if you are going fast enough will make everything in your car levitate momentarily and your heart leap into your throat. My all-time favorite is going over several (of both types) in a row with a Dukes of Hazzard-like hill at the end and I know just the place.
I know frost heaves are not the best exercise for your car, but I cannot keep away from them. My job has me travel a lot and I’m always choosing the route that has the most heaves. The older roads are better, especially when the frost heave has been years in the making. It starts out relatively small the first year and if the road hasn’t been repaired or updated, by year three, that heave is huge when this time of year comes ‘round.
Don’t get me wrong, heaves are only temporary, which means they subside once the cold weather goes away. But the potential is always there. And once a frost heave has been started, it doesn’t go away unless it’s been eradicated by the foot-dragging Department of Transportation (the same department that likes to fill in potholes with fresh asphalt the day before it rains thus ensuring the potholes vomit up the asphalt, becoming bigger and deeper as a result).
Once I found this road that was entirely frost heaved from start to finish. God, what fun! But then after about the 3nd year, the community raised enough of a ruckus and it was scraped and re-paved. Bummer.
Each town posts little fluorescent signs that say “FROST HEAVE” on wooden stakes a couple hundred feet before the larger ones (the ones that have the potential to damage vehicles if speed is too fast) or clusters as a friendly warning. It’s also almost time for those signs that limit vehicle weights to start appearing. Apparently if heavy trucks drive over the heaves continually, it makes them worse.
Better! in my opinion.
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