Freezy Skid Stuff: Winter Travel Woes

192 car pile up in Los Angeles in 2003
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It doesn’t take much to rock the boat. A butterfly flaps its wings, and…

I’d imagined a productive morning of getting things done–maybe even a thoughtful or informative blog post for a change. But no.

It only took an inch of snow to change all that.

I just got an aborted ten-second call from Ann before she had to hang up, on the road this morning with a mere inch of snow on the ground. She couldn’t even get to Rt 460 before being stopped by a three-car pile up on Allegheny Spring road. Since I started that last sentence, she called again, on the interstate now, traffic going okay there, and she’ll get where she’s going most likely.

It’s the other guys on a day like this. She’s in no hurry, prepared to go 15 mph, with good tires and AWD on the Subaru. Meanwhile, other folks even with the obvious dangers are out there on bald tires going way too fast, many of them in cars and trucks not fit for perfect road conditions, much less this  mild winter mess.

If we’d thought about it, Ann should have taken my car this morning, since it has HER Nokia studded tires on it this year. (Couldn’t transfer them from her old Forester to the new one as the tires are 16″ and wheels on the current Forester are 17″ we discovered.)

Sorry, this was not at all on my list of things to relate to blog readers this morning. But when a family member is “out there” and in possible (if slight) danger and there’s not much else you can do, some times it helps to share the concern. Now, on to other things.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. Hope she’s home again all safe and sound.
    It’s amazing how people take chances with improper equipment and skills in bad weather.