I can vouch for this great winter driving tale from Henshaw....because he called me shortly after the two trucks jackknifed around him. And he recounted his adventure to me pretty much word for word as he tells it on his blog. He called me because, well, we're pals, but also because he was on his way to Vegas and the NATPE convention before going on to Los Angeles, if I remember correctly. See, he was going to check out some going-ons for me at NATPE and report back.
But perhaps that's too much info.
At any rate, a fantastic story from Jim...anyone who's lived for any length of time in winter climes has one like it. Mine was much less exciting. It was during a winter drive through the Rockies for a week long golf trip in Vancouver...but I had the easy shift, then crawled in the back seat and slept for 4 hours as my two buddies navigated a monster blizzard that sprang up out of nowhere. I woke up when we finally crawled into Revelstoke and pulled up to a motel. And I would've thought nothing happened were it not for the ten inches of snow that was now on the roads and their pale faces and stressed out voices as they tossed back beers and described how many times we nearly slid off the highway with hundred foot drops on either side.
Ulp. What you don't know can't hurt you I suppose.
But I can say that next golf trip, we flew.
4 comments:
We should double blog the follow up phone call from Las Vegas. It might give people an insight into how the spin in the Canadian television business works.
Hmmm...Canadian TV biz a while ago, not sure applies anymore. But mulling.
for what it's worth...here's MY winter story (maybe there's a book in all of this ??)
Driving from Norman Wells to some godforsaken oil rig 100 km onto the tundra to do some shooting.
Half way there. 30 below. 4 pm. Sun setting quickly. Gossiping cheerfully with the crew. Driving too fast. Spin out...and end up 50 meters into the bush. Window deep in snow. Yikes.
I'll never forget the relentless ticking of the engine cooling down fast - or the absolute joy when about half an hour later a guy in a pick up came along and saved us from a long, long night.
Mine isn't as interesting, but I remember two occasions, oddly both driving to University.
Blizzard conditions caused visibility to be basically zero, but I, driving a van at this point, decided to make a go of it anyway. Driving southbound I was in the far left lane going across an overpass. Now somewhere between when I started the overpass, and when I came to the other side I ended up in the rightside lane. It was scarier than it sounds I'm sure, but considering traffic merging off the westbound meets up with the lane I magically ended up in, I was lucky nobody was there.
The second time was in rather nice conditions, weather wise, except for the black ice that enjoyed hanging out on a particularly curvy turn off toward the University. I wasn't even going fast, I took the turn at 40 km/h. I ended up doing a 180 in my lane, sliding perfectly onto the shoulder of the road, facing oncoming traffic. It would have been a lot more interesting had I not slide exactly onto the shoulder, but hey I'm not complaining.
Of course that's nothing like spending days snowed in.
Also, Saskatchewan has probably thee worst drivers in north america. Nobody knows how to merge, they love to run red lights, when people are turning right, even though they have a lane to go into, they'll stay in middle lane, slow down to 20, and then take the turn. Or this one always gets me, when you're trying to change lanes, and you have the room, but the asshat in the lane you want to change to speeds up so you can't. That one drives me nuts. It has finally come to the point where I just go anyway and pray they have a brain cell that'll send a signal for them to press the brake.
Sorry, this comment turned into a rant.
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