"California De-icing"

Kelvin has only ever lived in "warm" places his entire life-- first Vietnam and then California. Sacramento (where we did get winter frost) was the coldest place he lived (Humboldt winters are similar). While I love warm weather, when he and I met, I was fairly fresh of a stint living in the "polar north" of Minnesota, where I remember being warned (before I relocated there) that I'd have to "plug in my car" at night to prevent it from freezing (I was shocked. I never did this. My car and I were okay).  Rochester, MN, didn't get a lot of snow, but it was certainly cold enough, and I became a pro at ice scraping (of note, Virginia gets plenty of winter frost and cold weather, too so, while I don't love the cold, I am prepared to deal with it).

I remember learning at one point (I can't recall if I actually witnessed it) that Kelvin usually scraped off his windshield with a credit card or that he just spit or poured water on his windshield to "thaw" the frost on there, which made me cringe and visualize glass cracking. I thought,"What in the world?! Do you know they make ice scrapers for a reason?"  He had never lived anywhere where he would have had to!  

Nevertheless, he was vindicated slightly this week. We had a very early morning flight out of Arcata through San Francisco to Palm Springs and were on the plane, expecting to take off, when the United pilot announced that unfortunately we couldn't depart as planned because it was unanticipatedly frosty, and they (and the airport?!) didn't have the equipment to de-ice the wings at that time. We were told that we weren't sure when the wings would be "thawed" enough to safely take off, but we may have to wait a couple of hours until the sun came up, and we had to get off the plane until that happened. 

Eager to get started on our weekday and adults-only tennis getaway, we disembarked, grouchy (I more so than Kelvin, actually), and sat near the gate.  It obviously could have been worse, as no children were with us and this was just a short delay, not a cancellation. It was an extremely clear day (sometimes the fog here can really mess with flying safety and departures as well as landings). However, an American Airlines flight to Phoenix had already left, and we wondered what kind of de-icing equipment they had been lucky enough to have. 

Then, Kelvin caught the pilot and other crew members doing this:

It may not be that apparent from the pictures, but the pilot was walking coffee pots of hot water back and forth from the cabin and pouring them on the plane's wings. I just had to laugh. This is apparently California's version of de-icing, even at airports!  I guess it's safe (the plane obviously didn't crash) but just struck me as so weird (, sketchy, and hilarious despite my sleep deprivation and grouchy mood).

All thawed and ready to go 

Our plane left about an hour and a half later than planned. In a stroke of good luck, the United aircraft that we were taking from San Francisco to the desert was the same one that we were on, and so, while delayed some, we didn't miss any connections and were still able to watch nearly a full day of tennis (post coming soon).

California de-icing. Sigh. I hope United is better prepared next time.  At least our misfortunes always end up as funny stories for this blog. They’re part of this unpredictable and messy life, after all!