My inability to drive in snow is surpassed only by my inability to know when one should or shouldnt even try to drive in the snow.
Bill woke me up this morning to tell me hed shoveled the driveway of the 8 inches or so that had fallen overnight. But dont worry, he said… the snow plow had obviously been through. Better than last time. If theyre out plowing, it cant be too bad.
I dragged myself up about a half hour later, got Kaitlyn up and ready for gymnastics. We put on snow boots (well, I put in hiking boots) and we headed down our road to gymnastics class. They obviously hadnt returned with the plow and there were a couple of inches of snow on the road. But no ice. I went slowly and only slid a little bit around one corner, but I managed it. We got to a main road and it wasnt in much better shape than ours. Hmmmm…. I thought. Maybe this wasnt such a good idea. Then we got to the main road going up and down the mountain… there was the plow and the road was pretty clear. Hmmmm….. I thought. Maybe this was ok after all.
We made it to gymnastics. I parked where I thought I could get back out because the lot had been cleared but the snow had been pushed into all the parking spaces. Logical. We trudged up the hill to the building where all the Wednesday sports activities are and I realized that hiking boots in a foot of snow are stupid. We saw Kaitlyns teacher who told us no one else was there. Just us. And I didnt understand everything she said, but I got the distinct impression she was in no mood to give a gymnastics lesson to just one kid. She said we could wait a few minutes to see if anyone else made it out. Kaitlyn started playing in the snow…. but she wasnt dressed for playing just for trudging. Her cotton pants were immediately soaked through, as were her cotton gloves. (she prefers gloves but has tiny hands so the only gloves we can find that fit her are plain cotton… good for cold bad for snow) So without even saying goodbye to the teacher, I got Kaitlyn out of a snowbank and trudged back to the car cursing my boots and complimenting hers (why didnt I buy a pair when we bought hers? I wanted to and just should have done it).
The steady snow covered the road that was plowed when wed headed down the hill. I paused when we passed the last good place to put chains on your tires, but decided that the extra inch or so of snow wasnt enough to warrant that much trouble. So trying to act as cheery as possible about driving up our snow covered steep winding narrow street…. I turned up it. I made it up the first most nerve-wracking part no problem only to encounter a departing car at the top. We squeezed by each other successfully and I figured Id made it past the worst. I kept telling Kaitlyn there was nothing to worry about, but I dont know who I was trying to convince. My car has something-er-other built in to help keep it from slipping around and it was doing its job as I continued to climb up our street. I really didnt feel out of control of the car. I didnt panic. Didnt cry. Didnt snap at Kaitlyn to be quiet.
That was just after 9. Now its 2. The plow has not been up our street all day. The snow has not let up. I am not going out in this. It would at least require chains and probably also require panic, tears and yelling. Needed to get to the toy store to buy some birthday gifts. Too bad we cant get out, I bet the store isnt crowded at all today…..
Im supposed to go out to dinner tonight with a group of friends. Dont know if that will be happening or not. Im definitely not messing with chains in the dark.
You have acquired steel nerves. The stores probably would have been closed had you gone.