Tense Driving

I just had to pick the worst day of the year (so far) to go to the city. Of course I didn't know it was going to be such a horrible day when I set up the appointments a week and a half ago.

My first appointment was set for 9:40 am. When we got up the weather was not great at all as it was starting to snow. Along about 2:30 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the previous night I woke up to the sound of rain pelting down on the roof. It really rained there for awhile. So I just knew that the roads were going to be sheer ice. Top that with a nice dusting of 1-2 cm of fresh snow and it made for some tense moments on the road to the city.

We departed at 8:30 a.m. and I made it to my doctor's appointment at 9:38 a.m. The trip normally takes about 30 minutes of easy driving. Let me tell you, today was not easy driving. It was white knuckle driving at it's finest. As we got closer to the city, the snow got heavier and heavier. We were about 8 miles out of the city and the snow seemed to be a little thicker than it was a few minutes earlier. At this point I was traveling at about 55-60 kph. I let up on the gas a bit and got a view of what looked like something denser than snow. As I got a bit closer to the dense wall I found it was definitely a enclosed van semi trailer unit and the rear lights were totally encased in snow.

The semi was throwing up snow and it was very hard to see with the blowing as well as the freshly falling snow. However, the passing lane was very heavy with snow at this particular time as well. I matched the semi's speed at about 45-50 kph and just stayed in behind him for the last 8 miles into the city. Of course there was one idiot that just had to pass me and also the semi. He got by me okay, but the driver almost lost it going by the semi. I just shook my head.

About a 1/2 mile further down the road we came upon another semi that lost the road and was parked half in the ditch and half on the road. Thank goodness he didn't go in further and roll. We just kept puttering along and made it to the city in time for the appointment.

Once we were in the city the roads were just horrible. Heavy snow every which way you looked. The intersections were just a mass of ice and everyone was slip sliding away. After the doc's appointment I had set up another appointment to have the truck in for servicing at 10:30 a.m. Of course this was right across the city. We did make it to Wheaton's prior to the allotted time and got the truck serviced. Then we were onto Costco to pick up a few groceries, back to Wal Mart to get the prescriptions refilled and finally home.

The trip home was faster, but not by a whole lot as the road is just a mass of ice and the edges are heavy with snow.

Today I definitely was thankful for 'all wheel' drive on the Trailblazer.