This video clip is insane (and sad – apparently five people died as a result of this multi-car pile-up in Pennsylvania when a snow squall blew in suddenly.)
Growing up in Saskatchewan, I’ve had my share of scary winter drives. Unfortunately, none of these probably wouldn’t have happened if not for a common theme being my unwillingness to heed bad forecasts/wait a few hours/splash out for a hotel room!
Here’s a few that spring to mind:
* One of my worst winter drives was probably when I was working for Southeast Regional Library. I went to Carlyle Sask to do some Internet training with library staff in the afternoon and an evening session for the general public that ended at 8pm. I knew a blizzard was forecast and had even started but decided to head out towards Weyburn, normally a two hour drive. Once I was on the highway, I realised visibility was very poor but I was committed and figured that as long as I could see the centre line (er, most of the time), I’d be okay. I got to Oxbow and pulled in to a gas station to grab a drink (and my bearings) and saw a couple semis pulled in. That should have also been a warning. But I continued, figuring it couldn’t get any worse and I’d made it that far. It didn’t really get worse and I weirdly enjoyed the white knuckle drive with music cranked and figuring even if semis were pulling over, it was unlikely I was going to hit any other vehicles out on the road (I was not a logic major in University.). A trip that normally took two hours was closer to four and I got home to Weyburn where we were staying with my in-laws around midnight…only to find my father-in-law’s coworker who drove truck for a living on the couch, not being stupid enough to try to make it home to where he lives only twenty minutes away!
* Another scary one was when I went up to Saskatoon to give a speech at the Sask Book Awards Shortlist Brunch. I can’t even remember the topic – maybe I was promoting the Gala, maybe I was plugging some project of the Sask Publishers Group, maybe I was doing a financial appeal? At any rate, after the brunch, I hit the highway again knowing that conditions weren’t great but bullheaded about getting home (noticing a pattern here?). The roads were crappy and I kept noticing with interest how many vehicles were in the ditch. I had a crappy Ford Tempo, likely with half-bald tires but somehow convinced myself that my youth and rural upbringing made me quite impervious to the risks of those other bad drivers. I did make it home that time too but the Lumsden hill was nearly the death of me – basically feeling like I was piloting a toboggan down the steep incline (something we don’t regularly encounter in Saskatchewan) rather than a car!
* I wasn’t always successful in staying out of the rhubarb (Sask- or prairie-only expression?) Quite often in University, I would stick around on Friday night until my beer league hockey game ended before loading up on dirty laundry and heading out for my hometown after midnight. This night, the roads were crappy and there was blowing snow. I honestly don’t think I had more than a beer or two to drink that night (there were times “beer league” lived up to its name but I was pretty restrained if I was heading out on the highway and doubly so if conditions were poor) but it didn’t matter – around McLean I hit an icy patch, remember my car spinning around twice on the highway (luckily it was a double-lane highway so no oncoming traffic and luckily no one behind me either). I was in the ditch in a snowbank but fortunately, especially in those pre-cell phone days, I was somehow able to drive myself out of the ditch almost as easily as I got in and carry on my way little worse for the wear.
* Final one that springs to mind was when Shea and I went to Mexico for the first time in Feburary 2000. I can’t remember if there were no direct flights or it was a better deal but we ended up booking our flight out of Winnipeg. The trip there was fine and we left our car at a friend’s place. But when we got back a week later, the forecast wasn’t great – right around zero with rain. We planned to drive back to Regina as soon as we got home but our friend encouraged us to stay with him for the night to be safe. “Oh, we’ll be fine” I said as famous last words. We headed out and the rain was okay for awhile. But then it started to get colder (did I mention it was the middle of the night too? and the rain started to freeze. Then the freezing rain turned to super heavy snow that was clogging the highway completely. We managed to stay behind a semi which helped cut a path but that same crappy Tempo I mentioned earlier was the car we were in and it didn’t exactly have 4×4 (or AWD!). I was white knuckling it yet again until we finally got to Portage La Prairie which is normally only an hour from Winnipeg but again, likely took us a couple hours to get there. We pulled into the first motel we found and booked a room at 3am knowing we might only get a few hours of sleep before check-out time. We crashed hard for a few hours of power sleep then were up and luckily the plows were out (as was the sun) and the roads were good for the rest of the way home.
