leaving the house

everyone that lives in our region knows it's insane to leave the house the first day we receive substantial snow. of course, it snowed like a maniac over night and i had to be in a meeting an hour and a half from home first thing this morning. well, i didn't get two blocks from home before nearly getting smashed by someone that apparently forgot to apply his brakes prior to actually needing to. another mile into the journey a car coming at me began spinning--luckily i was far enough away with no one else was in front of me to avoid hitting the goof ball driving entirely too fast. i can deal with my own driving skills on the slippery stuff but other people scare me to death. many, many accidents including an overturned semi that stopped all northbound traffic for more than four hours to which i was lucky enough to be a part of. needless to say, i was very late even after allowing an extra 30 minutes for the weather. the drive home was just as eventful--heavy snow--the white knuckle--stare at the tailights in front of you--snow--caused everyone to crawl along like a mob of blind people. i was thrilled to get off of i-94. i vowed, today, to follow my instincts by staying close to home when it snows.

A semi on its side after it crashed with another semi on US-131 in Allegan County, Nov. 17, 2008

now, if someone could tell me what spilled out of one of those semi's, i'd appreciate it.