November 27th 2006

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:56:35 GMT

Well, I never thought I would say I appreciated Humvees until today. At around 3pm on Monday November 27th, it started to snow. Just a little at first, but then it came down faster and faster and started to cover everything in sight. I had meetings at work until 5pm, but I left as soon as I could after that - around 5:20pm. I had 10 miles to travel home. It took 3.5 hours.

From the start, it was a standstill on the roads leaving Redmond and for most of the time I made great progress at 1 to 2 miles per hour as the volume of traffic, the icy roads and lack of visibility through the snow storm kept everyone at low speeds.

I don't have a particularly good car for this kind of weather. It's basically a sports car with low profile tyres and rear wheel drive. At least being a manual (stick shift) I was able to keep it in 1st gear most of the way home. However, it's not grippy in the snow and ice and at the first hill downwards, I slid a little way, luckily nowhere near other cars. I took the main roads all the way, and then came across a jam of people trying to get up a short hill eastbound with traffic lights at the top. Once you stop on a hill like that, 2 wheel drive cars just couldn't get going again and just slid around. I managed to avoid that hill by cutting right, going for a while, then left and left again to take the same hill from the south side which was less steep and continuously moving.

A little farther on, still doing an average of 2mph, and still on main roads, I needed to get over one more major hill before reaching the next main road home. I decided to chance it, since any alternatives were much worse, and being a main road, I was hoping that most of the ice and snow had been swept away by other vehicles.

Well, I made it most of the way, but about three quarters of the way up, the car lost traction and couldn't make any forward progress at all. The back end started sliding out towards the other side of the road and I just had to stop and try to get lined up again and take another run at it. All the while there was a line of traffic behind me, just as I had been behind a line of traffic ahead of me, which was now way over the other side of the hill.

By this time, 2.5 hours had passed, and I was about 4 miles from home. I was seriously considering letting the car back down the hill into the grass bank to the right and park it there. I was holding up too much traffic and would have to walk home.

Just at that point, coming the other way, was a Humvee, the kind that looks a little like a Land Rover with no rear cover. It had huge winter tyres with thick tread and chains on every one of the 4 wheels driven by the engine. The driver stopped as he lined up with me on the other side and asked if I needed help. Yes! Thank you! I couldn't believe my luck. At just the point I would have had to spend another couple of hours walking home, here was someone in the only practical car for this weather, offering to tow me up the hill. Well after a few minutes involving the locating of the tow hook, which is stowed in the boot (trunk) and needed to be screwed in, we were soon making progress up the hill and just at the brow we stopped and he unhooked me, turned around and left after profuse thanks from me.

I then proceeded to make my way over the rest of the hill and back down, where I then sat for 45 minutes not moving at all behind another line of traffic. Apparently the same thing as I had been doing, had been occuring on this side of the hill where other cars unable to make it up the hill, had just been abandoned and caused a hold up on the other side of the road and cars and SUVs that could make it had to go around them.

After 3.5 hours I finally got home. I was so relieved and the car was covered in a thick layer of snow. It was so nice to be home, and I was thankful I didn't have further to go, otherwise it might have resulted in a night in the car.

Outer Space: Travel

November 27th 2006