Need help perfecting the budget build hemi swap

A friend in Austin Tx. wrote on facebook, how the whole city was paralyzed. They had a little snow, and he was stuck at a gas station / convenience store for hours, because there was no snow plows for the roads.
The roads by my house look like this, and have for several weeks. It's not a lot of snow, but it never gets moved, except to be packed down into a compressed ice sheet. One of the things that really sucks is when I leave our van to warm up, the snow, and ice beneath of it melts level, and than refreezes into a smooth surface.