Do you remember the first time that you drove in snow?

[Torvy]

Good post! Common sense like this needs to be repeated until we get it.

I buy good winter tires, the tires are designed for better traction in cold weather.

First time driving in the snow was in a 49 chevy one ton. Good thing it had a top end of about 40 mph and got there real slow.

One time, here in Texas where snow is rare and most people don't have experience, I was commuting to work on the 121 toll road early in the morning. Very few cars on the road due to snow. To me, no big deal, maybe a couple of inches and a little blowing....the speed limit is 70 and normal traffic goes about 80+ during the commute. Even all alone, I was going 45-55 in my Prius. I saw ahead a police car in the center (of 3) lanes doing maybe 25. I thought briefly about slowing down, but that would have been dangerous and I was well under the limit. I figured if he was going that slow, he was not going to even try to catch me if he thought I was going too fast for the conditions. Only time in my life I blew past a police car.

FYI kids, him going too slow is very dangerous. People do not expect people on the toll way to go that slow. If you cannot at least do the minimum, exit and use the side roads.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Don't go west for Christmas. I have a cousin in Wyoming who sent me a one line text: "Wyoming is closed." I-5 north of Redding to BC will be impassable at times. Expect Siskiyou Summit to be closed. Expect the Cascade passes to be closed. If you have never driven in snow, this is your chance.

The last time a storm like this came through, a couple semis jackknifed on the west slope of 138 about 8 PM. The towing companies wouldn't even try to show up until the next morning. There's nothing like a bunch of flatlanders who think they "know how to drive in snow" when they are faced with a 6% downgrade with 25 mph S-curves.

 

[Jstpssng]

One time, here in Texas where snow is rare and most people don't have experience, I was commuting to work on the 121 toll road early in the morning. Very few cars on the road due to snow. To me, no big deal, maybe a couple of inches and a little blowing....the speed limit is 70 and normal traffic goes about 80+ during the commute. Even all alone, I was going 45-55 in my Prius. I saw ahead a police car in the center (of 3) lanes doing maybe 25. I thought briefly about slowing down, but that would have been dangerous and I was well under the limit. I figured if he was going that slow, he was not going to even try to catch me if he thought I was going too fast for the conditions. Only time in my life I blew past a police car.

FYI kids, him going too slow is very dangerous. People do not expect people on the toll way to go that slow. If you cannot at least do the minimum, exit and use the side roads.

I was thinking about this very thing a couple of weeks ago when headed down the interstate after a storm. The limit had been lowered to 45. I was doing around 55-60, and was the slowest vehicle on the road. It was perfect conditions to find black ice so I was happy with my speed; yet anybody who drives the interstate in winter knows that the passing lane tends to be more dicey. It could be argued that I was creating the hazard by forcing people to go around me into the passing lane, even though I was traveling well over the temporary limit... until somebody finds black ice.

 

[Torvy]

Don't go west for Christmas. I have a cousin in Wyoming who sent me a one line text: "Wyoming is closed." I-5 north of Redding to BC will be impassable at times. Expect Siskiyou Summit to be closed. Expect the Cascade passes to be closed. If you have never driven in snow, this is your chance.

The last time a storm like this came through, a couple semis jackknifed on the west slope of 138 about 8 PM. The towing companies wouldn't even try to show up until the next morning. There's nothing like a bunch of flatlanders who think they "know how to drive in snow" when they are faced with a 6% downgrade with 25 mph S-curves.

Amen. I don't often agree with you Larry, but you are spot on here. I learned my lesson the hard way coming down Mt. Charleston. SUV=sled.

 

[groundcover]

Yep, usually the first time 4x4 owners in the ditch , they go like summer but stop and steer like winter !
At least I learned that from a friend in high school ! Leaving school he went tearing up the road in his Jeep Wagoner
( the big old school one), got to the Main road and slid right through the intersection and hit a car. No one hurt but we both learned a lesson that day !
Was riding with mom one evening on a four lane highway, moving right along at 60 or so when we came on a few deer that thought they should check out the latest salt offering from the state ! '68 Ford Torino , well before that antilock stuff. Had an 18 wheeler milk truck hot on our tail too. She got right on the brakes and started to spin out, lifted, hit the gas and put it right between two of them ! I looked behind us to see one spin away on each side ! They missed the milk truck . Small matching dents on the fenders, not enough to even get fixed. Called Fish and Game when we got home , they never saw a sign of them, close call for us all ! Stellar piece of driving!

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Not too long after we moved from Wyoming to Oregon over Christmas, I went to Starting Line Sports (soon to become Nike), with another middle distance runner that my new track coach had lined me out with so I’d have practice buddy.

We went after school, and headed back out to Gresham from downtown Portland at about 4:15, and took the Banfield Expressway. It is of course raining.. I’m making the speed limit, and people are curing down the road at about ten over the speed limit with less than 1-second between them. Scared the Bejeusus out of me. I got off and took the surface streets home. They still didn’t leave enough distance between them and the car in front of them, but we were only going 40-mph.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I'm pretty irritated at the post office. We have had one mail delivery in the last week, and that one should have been 6 days worth of mail instead of a couple flyers. They are not even sorting mail at the post office. It was pretty typical for the rural carriers to skip a day a week, but this is out of hand. Outgoing mail just sits in the mailbox. Sometimes the mail doesn't arrive until 8 PM, sometimes it doesn't arrive at all. DeJoy was determined to wreck the postal service, and it looks like he is succeeding.

 

[RickB]

I'm pretty irritated at the post office. We have had one mail delivery in the last week, and that one should have been 6 days worth of mail instead of a couple flyers. They are not even sorting mail at the post office. It was pretty typical for the rural carriers to skip a day a week, but this is out of hand. Outgoing mail just sits in the mailbox. Sometimes the mail doesn't arrive until 8 PM, sometimes it doesn't arrive at all. DeJoy was determined to wreck the postal service, and it looks like he is succeeding.

I can't believe he still has a job.

 

[Hay Dude]

I'm pretty irritated at the post office. We have had one mail delivery in the last week, and that one should have been 6 days worth of mail instead of a couple flyers. They are not even sorting mail at the post office. It was pretty typical for the rural carriers to skip a day a week, but this is out of hand. Outgoing mail just sits in the mailbox. Sometimes the mail doesn't arrive until 8 PM, sometimes it doesn't arrive at all. DeJoy was determined to wreck the postal service, and it looks like he is succeeding.

That’s unacceptable!
Thought we had it bad when we occasionally get a neighbors letter or get skipped a day once a month.
Have noticed our town PO has sign on the door that says something like “due to staffing shortages, you may experience longer than expected wait times”. Yet I notice when I go there, there’s no shortage of people in the back room cracking jokes while one person waits on a line of 10 people out the door.

 

[Farmer495]

Times have changed, with traction control I miss doing controlled skids in snow.

Some newer vehicles if you HOLD the anti-fun system button down for a long period of time it will cancel traction control and stability control, allowing fun to be experienced.

Others, nothing aside cutting wires will shut the $#%Q#^%%$ off. I drove one pickup that the switch was there, the "off" light came on, but you still couldn't spin the tires enough to get moving on ice, computer shut you off instantly.

 

[Oaktree]

Yep, usually the first time 4x4 owners in the ditch , they go like summer but stop and steer like winter !

When I lived in southern N.H., first snow of the season it was all pickups and Suburu's in the ditch. This was when AWD was still relatively new, and people still thought it made them invincible.

We went after school, and headed back out to Gresham from downtown Portland at about 4:15, and took the Banfield Expressway. It is of course raining.. I’m making the speed limit, and people are curing down the road at about ten over the speed limit with less than 1-second between them. Scared the Bejeusus out of me. I got off and took the surface streets home. They still didn’t leave enough distance between them and the car in front of them, but we were only going 40-mph.

Couple years ago we took a trip to N.C. to visit my stepson. Ran into a deluge coming home thru Va. on I-81, so bad we had to pull over until it let up...could barely see the end of the hood it was raining so hard. Traffic still whizzing by 70mph like it was a sunny day.

Here, often just the opposite when it snows...people poking along holding up long lines of traffic. Not many safe places to pass.

I'm pretty irritated at the post office. We have had one mail delivery in the last week, and that one should have been 6 days worth of mail instead of a couple flyers. They are not even sorting mail at the post office. It was pretty typical for the rural carriers to skip a day a week, but this is out of hand. Outgoing mail just sits in the mailbox. Sometimes the mail doesn't arrive until 8 PM, sometimes it doesn't arrive at all. DeJoy was determined to wreck the postal service, and it looks like he is succeeding.

I can't say I've seen any decrease in service whatsoever. Maybe mail comes by an hour or so later on a Monday or day after a holiday but that's it. Even mis-deliveries are way down compared to a couple years ago. Maybe time for a new postmaster at your PO.

 

[cqaigy2]

Mine was a Yamaha 175 CC motorcycle. The first car was a Ford Torino 351 Cleveland, i put 300 lbs in the trunk, which helped somewhat, but still got stuck in a level parking lot, with a slight uphill to the main road. I've probably been stuck almost any way possible and learned a lot about getting unstuck.

 

[Jstpssng]

Some newer vehicles if you HOLD the anti-fun system button down for a long period of time it will cancel traction control and stability control, allowing fun to be experienced.

Others, nothing aside cutting wires will shut the $#%Q#^%%$ off. I drove one pickup that the switch was there, the "off" light came on, but you still couldn't spin the tires enough to get moving on ice, computer shut you off instantly.

That only works until you exceed 30 mph, then the TC self-disengages but you are right; I do it often. As I mentioned before I used to disable the ABS, after doing $350 worth of front end damage on a washout in a gravel road because the brakes wouldn't work.
I also have been known to ease on the parking brake when trying to stop in snow... you need to be in 4WD, and don't do it with somebody behind you or you WILL get hit. Only an engineer could think that one tire braking is more effective than 4.

 

[ponytug]

Mine was a Yamaha 175 CC motorcycle. The first car was a Ford Torino 351 Cleveland, i put 300 lbs in the trunk, which helped somewhat, but still got stuck in a level parking lot, with a slight uphill to the main road. I've probably been stuck almost any way possible and learned a lot about getting unstuck.

Reminds me of taking a shortcut late at night, 2am or so, in the wintertime in Boston, to find a bridge over a rail line out. Stopped to turn around. Pulled four or five feet into a driveway going downhill to turnaround, only to discover ice on the far side, and spun out. Stuck. Called AAA. Forty five minutes later, two guys in a tow truck turn up. Guy #1 leans out the window, looks at the situation and says...
"No ******' way buddy. No ******' way." and drives off. It would have taken five minutes.

So, moving on...I popped the trunk. My sister jumped up and down in the trunk, and I burned rubber to melt the ice enough to get back on to the road. It took less time than I thought, and we didn't go over the embankment down to the rail line.

It is a vivid memory that has stuck with me for some reason, mentally filed under
"Inter-Tribal problems" and "Bostonian views on non-native members of other castes". It was by far the most tribal place that I have ever lived. Lots of great memories of Boston, and some wonderful individuals, but wow, it was so fractious and tribal. Highlights included the fire chief caught and convicted of burning buildings down with people in it so voters would support the fire department, the Bank of Boston caught not reporting cash transactions for the mafia, and a city selectman quoted in the local paper saying that the trouble with getting an envelope with $450 in it was that you didn't know if the guy handing it to you took out $50 or $550.

Good times...

To each his own.

All the best,

Peter

 

[AchingBack]

Slip slidin' away.

 

[ponytug]

Slip slidin' away.

 

[Oaktree]

It is a vivid memory that has stuck with me for some reason, mentally filed under
"Inter-Tribal problems" and "Bostonian views on non-native members of other castes". It was by far the most tribal place that I have ever lived. Lots of great memories of Boston, and some wonderful individuals, but wow, it was so fractious and tribal. Highlights included the fire chief caught and convicted of burning buildings down with people in it so voters would support the fire department, the Bank of Boston caught not reporting cash transactions for the mafia, and a city selectman quoted in the local paper saying that the trouble with getting an envelope with $450 in it was that you didn't know if the guy handing it to you took out $50 or $550.

Not quite sure what you mean by that. Try being a yankee in the south if you want to be treated like a second class citizen.
As far as corruption, I don't imagine it's any worse in Boston than in any other city of its size.