Icy

It got scary icy today. I took the kids to school and all was fine, but then snow began to fall. No big deal. I’m from Montana. Easy to deal with. Only the snow melted and put down a layer of ice before it started to stick. Still not an issue (or so I thought) because all the cars have four wheel drive. But then I began to see people sliding down the hills on either side of our house. Through the stopsign, up onto sidewalks. One guy ended up on one of those electrical boxes with all four wheels off the ground.

I ventured out just shortly before noon. My husband’s employer is changing insurance companies and I was supposed to be at the meeting to ask any questions. It’s all of a mile away with several large hills in between. I backed out of the driveway and didn’t hit the gas. Just rolled down the hill. And I couldn’t stop. I tapped the brakes because I kept starting to slide. I should have put it in a lower gear (driving an automatic), but didn’t think about it. I kept control, but I noticed that there were people on the sidewalks, a lot of them, and a lot of cars parked along the roadway. I kind of slid through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, luckily I didn’t have a problem with oncoming traffic.

Next up, big freaking hill. Going up was no problem. I got over into the bike lane to take advantage of the snow–that does give some traction. Going down hill, I kept control and only started to slide twice. I did stop at the light and was able to go through without issue. I went to Burger King to pick up lunch for the man. Oh, yeah, I’d promised him lunch. Got in all right, but nearly slid into a corvette coming out of drivethrough. I steered into it and stopped. Then I went to the man’s work.

By the time I left, they’d put gravel down on the roads (but only halfway up the hill we live on–incidentally there are two schools uphill and that road is a regular one for kids to walk on and parents to drive on). I got home just fine, but again, passed a lot of cars who got stuck going up the hill (no four-wheel drive), and the tow truck removing that one stranded car that was hanging up on its chassis. The tow truck had chains on and it had a hard time getting traction to go up hill even without pulling a car.

It’s not going to warm up much in the next couple of days, so I anticipate not going anywhere much. Hope I don’t need anything at the store.

One Comment

  • Tine

    I found out the hard way that down shifting into a lower gear works just like tapping the brakes. I had one whopper of a sort of controlled spin down a long hill one early morning by down shifting. Luckily, I was the only car on the road.