An Epic Winter Tale

Do you remember going driving for the first time? Was it just a shopping trip to the supermarket with your parents, the time your older sibling snuck you out for a quick run without letting your parents know or for you adventurous few a full out joyride? (hopefully not). Well, while I'll save my first driving experience story for a later time and post, I did do something I felt was milestone-ish yesterday, and that would be legitimate winter driving.

Granted, it wasn't for anything that exciting, (heck, it's something that ranks near bottom on the exciting list), it still proved to be a day of excitement and in the end learning. I had to go pick up a friend to go to the library and work on a Government project and given the recent storm we had, anything that wasn't a main artery through the town is still covered in 3 inches of compacted snow and ice. Me and my Passat made it out of my neighborhood alright and the main road was okay apart form lanes being much narrower due to massive snow plow drifts along the side, the fun started when I pulled into her neighborhood. I was greeted by piles and piles of nasty grey-brown slush that I easily powered through but then I entered roads seemingly untouched by a plow or sand truck, heck, I could barely see the road. The neighborhood is really close by to my old elementary school and the roads are very hilly and by this point rutted by all the people who had tried to get out. I got down the main hill and entered the small road which leads to her house, the bumps made my car bump and slide a little form side to side and STC had to kick in a few times but I finally reached the final turn.

Now, if all the other roads ranked at about a 6 or so in terms of impassibility, this ranked as a 9. There was only one set of tire tracks leading down to her house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Obviously people were being smart enough to not venture out when the roads are doing their best to halt any progress. I made it down the hill okay but I realized the tizzy I was in by the time I reached the bottom (did I really just use the word "tizzy"!?). The hill was steep, or at least somewhat steep, I just drove down in a forward direction on a set of tire tracks with no where to even begin to turn without getting pitifully stuck, and my car was front wheel drive. After my friend got in, I tried the only thing I could possibly do, and that is reverse up a rather long slippery snow covered hill. I tried to follow the tire track and got about 1/3 of the way up when all progress stopped and a little yellow light on my dash started blinking. It was the traction control light and that meant I was stuck. First thought in my head - "Fuck, now what do I do" followed then by "well this is embarrassing" and finally by "okay, let's try his again". I repeated this process about 4 more times before I decided to start all the way over. further down the road my friends neighbor cleared off their driveway and a cable repair man told us to drive in, make a u turn and try going up the hill frontwards, so we did. This time around, we got a scare half way up but eventually, we got out of the hill of death.

So me and my friend went to the library and got our work done all fine and dandy and we were going to go to lunch afterwards but her parents were a little cranky so that plan was axed. When i wen to go drop her off again, i decided to not go down that final hill again and my friend agreed and said she would just walk the final leg to her house. After that, I went to Baja Fresh to get some lunch and headed home, completing my first winter driving experience.

So, what did we learn?
1. We need more snow plows to clear off the roads
2. AWD really is necessary sometimes
3. Drive slowly
4. New Englanders and Mid-Westerners must be part eskimo to be able to endure this weather four times over every winter.

Happy Holidays!

JP