Sun 4 Dec 2005
It started snowing late Friday night as I was on my drive up to Vermont for the weekend. I have to say, after my accident last year, I was pretty white knuckled the whole way up. I even missed the house because for some reason the driveway wasn’t plowed and it is a bit set back from the road. After turning around a few times and spinning my wheels I decided it is time to invest in a more snow-worthy car. I’m going to look at Subaru’s this week. Everything else worked out fine and I could easily get out of the driveway during the day when the snow was softer.
I ended up being the first person at the house which was a good thing because when Stacy showed up she had forgotten her key. It ended up being just me and four other people at the house. I am guessing nobody thought there would be good snow this early in the season. Considering the time of year, the skiing was excellent. I pretty much killed myself on Saturday and ended up retiring to the house at about 2:00 .
When everybody got back a couple of us grabbed some beers and headed for the hot tub. There is nothing quite like skiing all day then putting on a bathing suit and running through the snow to get to a tub of oh so hot water. About half way through our soak we jumped out, made snow angles and jumped back in on a dare.
We all went out to the Pickle Barrel for some late night fun but we mostly all just conked out around 11:30 and went home. I am hoping that I get used to the physical exertion of skiing fast or there will be a lot of those early nighters.
Sunday saw just three of us going up to the mountain where we only stayed for two hours. That is what is nice about having the house. I don’t feel like I have to push myself to get my monies worth. If I feel like relaxing I can go back to the house at any time I want, or I can wake up early and ski the whole day and not worry if I will be too tired to drive back down to Massachusetts. It all works out pretty well.
Just as we were leaving who do I see walk past the car but Kristian Høgsberg and David Zeuthen. It was David’s first time skiing so I will have to find out how he did tomorrow at work. I would have stayed and skied with them but I was dead tired and just wanted to pack up and get back down to Boston.
[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]
December 5th, 2005 at 2:26 am
A good car is important in the snow. If you’re up a lot you may want to invest in some snow tires. Especially up in Killington (I’m from the area). And they may be useful in MA too. They’re a bit pricey though.
December 5th, 2005 at 10:34 am
Increased traction for mobility is great, but remember that having AWD/4WD will not protect you from sliding off the road. I just got back from a trip through some snowy Nevada passes, and I didn’t see one 2WD vehicle stuck in a ditch/snow bank/upside-down somehow. What I *did* see were 4 vehicles, all with 4WD/snow tires, slide off the road because they thought they could go above 40 MPH in heavy winter conditions. One was completely off the road, buried up to its windowsills in snow, the driver and his wife stuck inside. Another rolled in a ditch and was sitting on its top. 4WD vehicles aren’t evil or anything, but do be careful.
P.S. Your captchas are incredibly hard! I had to reload 7 times to find one I could read. The first one I *thought* I could read errored me out 3 times
December 5th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
AWD isn’t a perfect solution as you said. I like how I saw it put on some Surbaru forum, “Nothing is going to help you if you lose traction on all four wheels”. What the Legacy will give me though is a heavier car and piece of mind that I have four wheels to keep me on the road. I am currently driving a Dodge Neon and it is just too light a car. I’ll also take a look into some snow tires.