Winter is here, we have about six inches of snow out at my place. It's been snowing every day and the temp has been hovering around 30 degrees, which is making driving a real, ahem, adventure.
If it would just drop to below zero the slipperiness would go away. But when it hovers around freezing like that you end up with wet ice, sloppy snow, freezing rain, it's just awful. Twenty below would make driving a breeze!
I talked to the mechanics and I won't be getting my truck back for at least a week, which is very frustrating, as the truck I borrowed to drive is not exactly suited for this weather. So much so that when it broke the chains my boyfriend lent me, this morning on the way to work, I just pulled over, parked it and started calling friends for a ride the rest of the way into town. I just happened to be at the bottom of the hill where a friend lives, so she piled her toddler into the car and drove me in, which was very kind of her. We all ate pistachios and talked a mile a minute. You just never know when you are going to have fun, eh?
So I made it in to work for the second day in a row, which was good, because I missed all of last week being sicker than I've been in fifteen years. I'm back, I'm not contagious, but I have to continue to blow my brains out and cough up raw oysters for a while. It's lovely.
When I took my truck to the mechanic it was fall. The seasons have changed drastically since then! They say they are having trouble getting the parts, even though the parts aren't exotic or rare... and I can't tell you how much I want my truck back! It has snow tires, it has 4WD, it has manual transmission...it's MY truck. I don't care what the weather is doing outside, if I have MY truck I can drive in it! Some say I'm a wussy for declining to drive a 2WD automatic pickup with balding street tires...but hey, so what? I'm alive and if I drive that truck without modification, I bet I won't be!
The road I live on goes up and down big hills. It has hundreds of whoop-tee-do's (frost heaves) that throw you all over. It's a two-lane country road, as most of the roads in Alaska are. If your front end starts wandering there is enough traffic that you can easily do a head-on. It's damn scary! And that's without the Moose Factor!
I want my own truck back. I feel castrated not being able to drive my own vehicle and go where I want when I want to go. It's so awful to have to ask for rides, to have to be constantly figuring out how to make the undrive-able driveable. It's crazy making! MY truck sticks to the road. MY truck has versatility. My truck behaves itself!
I'm probably going to stud the tires on the borrowed truck and put about 500 lbs of sandbags in the back of it. That's probably the best we can do.
Wish me luck and make the Truck Fairies fix MY truck FAST!
