Driving in the snow

Last december i took my girlfriend to a christmas town in eastern washington for a holiday vacation. peak washington winter season. snow on the road. people told me not to go. they said you need tire chains. and even with chains it’s dangerous. young men love risks because they can’t imagine the consequences. 

i thought: this is one of those times where people warn you about something but actually it’s fine, most people are fine, they’re just virtue signaling, wanting to be the ‘i told you so’ guy if something goes fantastically wrong. wanting to be the guy who stops other people from taking stupid risks. wanting to be a good friend.

so i took her and we went anyways. i bought chains from AutoZone. they were expensive. i thought we wouldn’t use them. we start driving from Seattle to Leavenworth. as soon as we get near the path I see why people advised against this. the winds are strong. stronger than winds i’ve ever felt while driving. i lost control for a couple seconds at 60 MPH and didn’t go 60 again for the rest of the weekend. thick snow. loud wind. i was driving the smallest, oldest car on the road. but we were making it. 

eventually we get to a zone designated for “CHAINS ONLY OR 4WD” vehicles. nobody checks, probably, but there’s a big sign telling you to do it and many cars were chaining up on the side of the highway. it was dark now. it gets dark real early in the Washington winter. 

we decided to put the chains on. i had never even heard of “chains” for tires until last week. they are basically metal braces you strap to your tires to improve traction. you lay them down on the ground, like a fallen stepladder, drive over them, and strap them around your tires. using your bare hands. this is very difficult. 

putting the chains on was maybe the most physically difficult thing i did that entire year. it has to be so incredibly tight, it literally took all the prime-of-my-life young man strength i had to pull them together using thick rubber bands so that they’d stay. it took over an hour of pulling thick metal cords together using bare hands in freezing cold and snow. we had to take several breaks to warm our hands so that they would again become functional. my girlfriend, amazingly, did much of it. i did the physically strenuous parts. after a very long cold toilsome hour and a half, we decided to drive forward with the chains and hope they worked. 

and they pretty much did. we had to pull over once to adjust them and with some help from a friendly roadside policeman (this is before law enforcement generally turned on me) we were able to fasten it so it didn’t come off again on the whole trip. we were all chained up. 

and then, about 30 minutes from our final destination, after many many miles of straight, the map demanded a decently sharp turn off the highway, which i took a little too fast, maybe 35 mph, combined with the icy roads was enough to send us sliding uncontrollably into a shallow snow bank on the side of the road. the car crashed nose down in the snow. rear wheels extended in the air, downward facing dog. GF and I were both a little exhilarated but neither of us were hurt at all and amazingly neither was the car. not a fucking scratch. 1999 honda accord. 

we called a tow truck and they lifted us out. a couple groups of people stopped and offered to help push us out. which we did try, but it wasn’t enough. i was happy to pay the $200 towing fee. a little life lesson. 

but i never told any of those people who told me not to go or that the roads would be too icy, i never updated any group chat or told anyone that it happened. because then they would be right.