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Being done driving.
Went down to DC to spend Christmas with my folks. Absolutely lovely Christmas I may post more about later. Right now, I'm busy becoming un-harrowed from the drive back.
We drove down Wednesday morning, which was pretty easy until we hit Beltway rush hour (at 3 pm). Totals:
Cars stalled or abandoned on the side of the road: 6
Cop cars that had pulled people over: 4 (2 of which had nabbed multiple vehicles at once)
Other people's accidents: 2 (one of which completely shut down an entire road)
We were supposed to leave late this morning, have brunch with some friends just north of Baltimore, and get in late this afternoon. After seeing the weather reports last night, we cancelled brunch and left just after dawn. We were lucky--the snow didn't start noticeably accumulating until we were less than an hour from home (which was probably about the time we would have been arriving at brunch had we stuck to the original plan). Totals:
Cars stalled or abandoned on the side of the road: 12
Cop cars that had pulled people over: 2
Other people's accidents: 5? 6? Lots? (We'd seen four accidents by the time we got one exit away from home, at which point we were deliriously happy that we weren't going the other direction. There was a pair of cars with the drivers exchanging information, and then a little bit back there were at least six cars fishtailed into each other. On a skyway. Every car was on a diagonal and crunched a bit into the others, there was absolutely no way around them, and there was nowhere to pull them over to the side. It looked like it was pretty low speed and no one seemed particularly hurt when we passed, thank goodness. But I doubt anyone on that side of the road went anywhere for an hour.)
When we got home, we yanked everything out of the car because I wanted to return it to the rental car agency before things got even worse. That half mile drive was one of the most harrowing drives in recent memory. I had at least four points where my brakes stopped working, with or without pumping. I was going about three miles an hour, so we didn't hit anything, but it was terrifying. But there wasn't really anywhere else to go and the car needed to be returned before 5 and the weather was only going to get worse. (We're on blizzard warnings until 6pm tomorrow.) I've never been so happy to drive into a parking garage. So glad to be home and not driving.
It was interesting riding up I-95, watching each state prime itself for snow, strategically placing batteries of snow plows on median strips, their yellow lights whirling through the weird flat light. And then as we got farther north and the snow began, we watched the trucks start peeling out, distributing sand and salt as they went. I'm not sure I've ever been so aware of the process before.
Went down to DC to spend Christmas with my folks. Absolutely lovely Christmas I may post more about later. Right now, I'm busy becoming un-harrowed from the drive back.
We drove down Wednesday morning, which was pretty easy until we hit Beltway rush hour (at 3 pm). Totals:
Cars stalled or abandoned on the side of the road: 6
Cop cars that had pulled people over: 4 (2 of which had nabbed multiple vehicles at once)
Other people's accidents: 2 (one of which completely shut down an entire road)
We were supposed to leave late this morning, have brunch with some friends just north of Baltimore, and get in late this afternoon. After seeing the weather reports last night, we cancelled brunch and left just after dawn. We were lucky--the snow didn't start noticeably accumulating until we were less than an hour from home (which was probably about the time we would have been arriving at brunch had we stuck to the original plan). Totals:
Cars stalled or abandoned on the side of the road: 12
Cop cars that had pulled people over: 2
Other people's accidents: 5? 6? Lots? (We'd seen four accidents by the time we got one exit away from home, at which point we were deliriously happy that we weren't going the other direction. There was a pair of cars with the drivers exchanging information, and then a little bit back there were at least six cars fishtailed into each other. On a skyway. Every car was on a diagonal and crunched a bit into the others, there was absolutely no way around them, and there was nowhere to pull them over to the side. It looked like it was pretty low speed and no one seemed particularly hurt when we passed, thank goodness. But I doubt anyone on that side of the road went anywhere for an hour.)
When we got home, we yanked everything out of the car because I wanted to return it to the rental car agency before things got even worse. That half mile drive was one of the most harrowing drives in recent memory. I had at least four points where my brakes stopped working, with or without pumping. I was going about three miles an hour, so we didn't hit anything, but it was terrifying. But there wasn't really anywhere else to go and the car needed to be returned before 5 and the weather was only going to get worse. (We're on blizzard warnings until 6pm tomorrow.) I've never been so happy to drive into a parking garage. So glad to be home and not driving.
It was interesting riding up I-95, watching each state prime itself for snow, strategically placing batteries of snow plows on median strips, their yellow lights whirling through the weird flat light. And then as we got farther north and the snow began, we watched the trucks start peeling out, distributing sand and salt as they went. I'm not sure I've ever been so aware of the process before.
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Date: 2010-12-28 05:02 pm (UTC)From: