Yesterday was an interesting day. After helping out at Gymboree on Black Friday, I decided to stay on and help out when they have new lines once a month. Last night was my first new line experience since leaving the company a year and a half ago. Of course it had snowed the night before and most area schools were out. It stopped snowing for a while during the day yesterday and started again a couple of hours before I needed to leave the house. I left in Hubby's 4 wheel drive vehicle, took it slow, and made it no problem leaving it in 2 wheel drive the whole way. New line went great! I had a blast just getting out, socializing with some of the gals I used to work with and just being able to work and not answer any questions. I worked in the Newborn department at the back of the store so I had no concept of the weather then entire time. We finished and I was leaving the store at 10:15pm. It had been snowing the whole time.
My mom text messaged me right as I was getting bag-checked to leave so I called her while I walked out to the truck. I talked to her while I scraped the small layer of ice and the snow on top of that off the windshield. Someone she knew had been in a car accident and she wanted me to be very careful. I was planning on it. I went all the way up the hill out of the mall to the main road through town. Not 100 yards down the road, I started sliding and going sideways. YIKES! I corrected and went ahead and put it in 4 high. Best to be safe than sorry and I didn't foresee myself going any faster than 25-30mph anyway. I made it 2 miles away from my house with no problems.
At that point, a pick-up was sitting at the bottom of a large hill and a guy on a 4-wheeler was sitting next to it. He started flashing his light at me so I began to slow down and slid to a stop to find out what was up. He told me the giant curving downhill portion of the road that followed the hill I was getting ready to ascend was blocked off because of a couple accidents and it was a sheet of ice. He said he could give me a ride home if I needed it. While all of that was very nice of him, I just wasn't sure how I felt about some strange guy giving me a ride home especially when Hubby was going to need his truck to get to work in the morning. The nice 4-wheeler guy said he would go up and talk to the firefighter that was up by the accident to see what the current conditions were like and he would come back and let me know.
I went ahead and ascended the hill and got to the last spot you can stop before the point of no return on the giant curving downhill part. I called Hubby and asked what I should do. There were already two pickups parked where I pulled over and I didn't really feel like our truck would safely fit parked there without blocking people or potentially getting hit by someone coming down the road later. What to do, what to do. There was a road right across from where I was parked that bypasses the giant curving downhill part but parts of it were steeper and curvier, though it was also a rougher road which could help with traction. Plus, not having been driven, it wouldn't have the packed down iciness the main road had. Feasible? I had driven it once in my old car and felt like I was off-roading and the road would swallow my car at any moment. I knew it wouldn't swallow the truck, but still. At this point, it was that or leave the truck somewhere semi-precarious, walk home and make Hubby walk to it in the morning. No sign of the 4-wheeler guy and the clock was ticking. Let's do it!
I got turned around and started up that hill. Made it to the top. Now there's a pretty good little hill with a turn at the bottom. Sliding, sliding, holding my breath...and made it! Now down another more gradual hill; at least it's straight. Here comes the bottom and the road turns 90 degrees...sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, stop. Now I'm too close to the road sign and edge of the road to get turned. Reverse, forward, reverse, forward, slide, reverse, forward, slide. After an I don't know how many point turn, I had done it. I switched to 4 low, put it in 1st and crawled down this relatively steep hill. Nearly 90 turn at the bottom, no problem. Here comes another steep hill but now I'm on gravel and the road is horrible rutted from heavy rain. Thank you for some traction! Made it to the bottom of that part no problem, had a couple more flat corners to take and what's that? A stop sign! Civilization! And it's the stop sign to the road that leads to my turn about 100 yards down! I can almost smell my kids! (Maybe they need baths ;) )
I got turned off the main road onto the side road and saw 5 sets of footprints from people who had walked home. I was so glad I was more fortunate than these folks in that I hadn't had to walk and had made it safely through the worst part of our road home. About halfway down that road I saw a guy walking. I felt bad for him so I stopped and offerred him a ride. Normally I wouldn't have even considered offerring someone walking down the road a ride, but I figured I was pretty safe in assuming his vehicle was stranded somewhere and he was just trying to make it home. He accepted and lived about 1/4 past my house so I went ahead and dropped him off at his house and then came back to ours. I did a good deed for someone and didn't get hurt or ripped off because of it! Yea!
I got up our steep driveway and got parked without sliding backward like we had the night before. I turned on the interior lights to locate my bags I had thrown in the back when I picked the guy up. I got my stuff and came running in the house to see my family. D-man was so excited! He kept saying Mama. It was adorable. It took me an hour and 25 minutes to make a drive that earlier in the evening had taken me just under 40 minutes. Apparently I was so excited to be home, I forgot to turn off the interior lights so Hubby's truck was dead this morning. Nice. And he had slept in and was already late for work. What a start to his day! Oops! At least he understood. One of our neighbors gave him a jump and he was off.
Oh, last night ranks right up there with one of two of the worst driving experiences I have ever had in the snow. Though the other one was mostly ice so I don't know if that counts. Come to think of it, the other one was trying to make it home from Gymboree as well. Hmmmm. Well, I'm just happy to be alive today and still have our truck on the road and in tact. It's a good day!
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