Monday, December 03, 2007

Snow, wind, rain - STOP!

Yikes! This weather sucks!

On Saturday DK and I were wine tasting all day in Woodinville. It started to snow in the afternoon and that was fun & exciting. Everything looks so pretty covered in snow. I was so excited! I couldn’t imagine a better day than drinking good wine with my wonderful husband and watching the snow fall all around us. The novelty soon wore off when it was time to drive home after dinner. By that time there must have been 4 inches of snow on the roads. To say the least it was an eventful trip.

I put the Pathfinder in 4-Low for the 15 mile drive home. As we were getting on the 522 in Woodinville I lost control on the ramp and ended up facing the wrong direction. Yikes. I got back on track and kept on going. We approached the ramp for the 405 south; you may know the one, it must be 2 stories or more above the freeway. We were inching along, shocked by all the cars on the guardrail or the few that had spun out and were facing in the wrong direction. All of a sudden the Pathfinder starts sliding sideways towards the guardrail. Luckily we hit a section that didn’t already have a car on it and we were only going a few miles per hour. I have never been up-close and personal with a guardrail before but I was pleased to learn that they have a little concrete curb on them so if you hit them with the side of your car, completely parallel like I did, that little curb hits your tires first and keeps the body of your car from hitting the actual concrete and metal rail. (*See diagram below.) Awesome! Disaster averted! We drove the rest of the way home going 25-30 on the 405. I was really happy to get home.


On Sunday I was out wine tasting again with Bri. The roads where clear but it was dumping rain. We had a great time and later met the husbands in Bellevue for dinner. At dinner DK told me that it was really windy at our house. At one point he heard a banging noise. An hour or so later he realized that we had left the mudroom door unlocked and the wind BLEW it open! Holy crap! He walked out the door to find our two cats (who are NOT allowed outside - ever) sniffing around our garden shed! I am so glad he found them! I guess they knew they weren’t supposed to be out there because they ran back into the house on their own without DK even having to chase them down. I suspect that a short time in the wind and rain was too much for our spoiled little babies.

The rain is still pouring down and as of this morning our driveway has turned into a pond and the mini-horse farm near our house no longer has pasture land, it has a lake!

4 comments:

DK said...

Nice diagram... but you forgot to point out the balding tires.

NuclearToast said...

I LOVE THE DIAGRAM! This post is 78% better due to inclusion of custom visual aids.

Shannon Perry said...

But would you have ended up the wrong way on the ramp if it hadn't been for all that "tasting"? I ask ya.

bladio said...

I'm glad you made it home! I always stay in when it snows because this whole town turns to crap in snowy weather.