From the land of the ice and snow

Actually here on the Planet Ann Arbor Mr. Golden Sun shone brilliantly from a cloudless sky ALL DAY today. We have some residual bits of snow around the edges but the pavement is DRYYYYYY and the walking was good. Two days ago (or was it three?) our sidewalks were pretty much unwalkable, a mess of ice and slush. Oh, I am not gloating. We are expected to get something like FOUR winter storms in quick succession beginning on Tuesday. It’s February and summer-like skies or not, it ain’t over yet. We’ll probably have snow tomorrow but probably not all that much.

I have friends and relations in the PACNW area and they are experiencing snow out there and sometime today a post from the police in Puyallup (pew-all-up, I think!) flew by on facebook or wherever. It listed a lot of useful driving information in a humorous way and I loved it. But y’know, they were telling folks to stay home if they had rear-wheel drive vee-hickles. Yes but…

When I was growing up in the yooperland, I learned to drive on rear wheel drive vee-hickles and I drove them in the winter. My first attempt to drive downtown during a snowstorm, I did a 180 trying to stop at the Minneapolis/4th Avenue intersection right next to St. Joe’s church. That sobered me up a bit.

All of us kids learned to drive in snow and we managed it. I remember driving the old coot’s Buick Lesabre (“banker green” as my brother and I used to laugh about) once around a corner through a big bunch of snow. It was a rear wheel drive car. I think that’s what most of our cars were then. It was sort of a big car and it was kinda like driving a boat and I did manage to successfully navigate that corner.

All that said, I know that Seattle has some snow driving challenges that are a lot different than those us Michiganders face. Stay safe!

One Response to “From the land of the ice and snow”

  1. Margaret Says:

    I also drove a rear wheel drive car in the snow when I was younger, and it was horrific, but could be done. It was like a science though, knowing how to get up and especially DOWN hills and come out of a skid. Front wheel drive is so much better! And AWD rocks, except in the ice. We are expecting the Big Kahuna on Tuesday which could bring 8-12 MORE inches here. I can’t even imagine it. That’s part of the reason why I went to the grocery store today. (not crowded at all) As long as we keep our power, we’ll survive our PacNW version of the Polar Vortex. P.S. Tonight it will get down into the teens. Ack.