Holy crap what a morning. Lots of snow in DC...way more than expected and the "pre treating" was useless and snowplows were all napping. Normally, I'm like "eff yeah! Snow!" But I havent swapped to snow tires yet, since I'm lazy. Consqeuntly, today was a nightmare! Things were fine until ...they werent.
Let me state that I'm not totally wreckless. On my morning walk with my dog, the main streets near me all looked wet, but clear. The snow wasnt really coming down that hard, so I decided to do it.
The first 15 minutes of the drive continued like that...wet with a bit of slush, only changing lanes seemed dicey.
So I go on this beautiful parkway, but there are 0 exits for about 10 miles. So when something bad happens, the whole things comes to a standstill. Things are fine for about 9 of the miles. Then a mile before the next exit, solid brakelights. After each stop I had a little trouble getting going, but for the most part it wasnt too bad. Until I got here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.934...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sOMt7eENMWftUVAJqw8uWzw!2e0
Uphill with significant camber. And mix that with 10 seconds stopped, follwed by 2 car lenghts forward. I tried the sit-and-wait-for-more-space trick, but people just cut me off. So each time I moved, I was at about 45 degree angle. As I proceeded up the hill i ended up with my rear tires using the (fortunately very low) curb as a bumper. I'm thinking...ok, this sucks, but I got this. Until near to the top of the hill there's a full sized van half on the shoulder, stranded. All of a sudden my use-the-curb trick was going to have me broadside him. Somehow, I manage to get enough momentum to scoot to the middle of the road (still at 45 degrees) and miss him by what must've been inches.
Then I get here, my exit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.939...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1spbQBuvdseUv8XcCdhC455A!2e0
Again, uphill with lots of camber. Worse, there are about six cars spun off in the middle of the cloverleaf. Some are in the road still, some on the grass. But then I see yellow flashing lights behind me. Out of nowhere a plow had appeared. It didnt have any salt/sand sprayer, but i wave him past. I, to the annoyance of those behind me, wait for him to get all the way to the top, and then hold my breath and go. The plow must've given me the extra tiny bit of traction I needed. At a crazy 45 degree angle I end up making it to the top, again with my bumper missing a bunch of cars by inches (including a 911, 135, and a legacy!). So my 20 minute commute took 3 hours (with 2.5 of those consumed in a 1 mile stretch).
At the end, I'm super glad I made it. But I wonder did the people behind me think i was crazy, awesome, or a bit of both?