Driving west on I-80 where the rain line met the snow line, a white SUV lay upside down surrounded by the flashing lights of a police car. Dozens of tractor trailers crisscrossed diagonally across the highway as drivers crouched on their knees in the snow fiddling with rusty snow chains.
There was a snow chain check point, but I was motioned to keep moving although numerous coupes and two-wheel drives were pulled over for chain control. Although my Honda CR-V is an all-wheel drive, only minutes later I found the back end slipping on the ice and ended up on the side of the freeway. SUVs continued to whiz on by. Luckily, shortly afterwards, two snow plows cleared two lanes, and I returned on my journey.
As I continued westward, the snow begin to fall harder until it began to accumulate on my windshield wipers and side view mirrors causing increasing less and less visibility. I kept moving forward very slowly, hoping for the best.
Finally I made it to the Truckee 89 South exit, but as I began to turn into the exit, once again the back tires slipped out. I found myself struggling for control of the vehicle. I drove down following the two-lane road following the Truckee River, staying as far away from the edge of the road as possible as to not end up in the Truckee River.
I know the cars behind me must have been annoyed at my consistently slow 25 mph in a 55 mph speed limit, but I kept in mind that I was really being a good citizen by encouraging everyone to slow down.
At 4:05 p.m., I turned into my driveway with an extremely crooked parking job and took a huge sigh of relief as I exited the car. There is probably already a half foot of snow at my house which is a lake level, so I’d predict that the tops of the mountains have probably already received a foot in the last two hours.
Ta-HAPS 