The way I like to tell it, it took us 5 hours to travel the first 12 miles off the mountain. Needless to say, we were a bit frustrated. Let me recap, in brief:
* Thursday morning: Zack and I drove to the local gas station to buy chains. The guy there said we definitely wouldn't need them. He didn't want to sell them to us, as he'd be scamming us. Nice guy. So we left.
* Friday morning, 7:30am: We make some phone calls. Chains are required to leave town and on the main highway.
* 8:30am: Zack and I leave to go to the gas station again (this time by gondola/bus/walk combo). Luckily Sarah B is there to stay with Beatrice!
* 9:00am: We buy chains for the van and head back by walk/bus/gondola combo.
* 9:45am: We arrive at the condo and start putting the chains on the van tires.
* 9:55am: We realize the chains ain't workin....
* 10am: I call the guy at the gas station. He thinks we are morons (I had mentioned I was from Georgia where snow like this was uncommon). We recheck the tire sizes and he calls Goodyear to double check.
* 11am: 1 hour and half of "Bull Durham" later...the guy they sent out for $95/hour comes to install the chains.
* 11:02am: The guy says, "No way, these aren't the right size." Duh. Luckily he's brought a spare set just in case...
* 11:04am: The spare doesn't work either.
* 11:55am: Guy returns with a brand new set of chains. They work. He doesn't charge us anything.
* 11:57am: Chains are on, we're all in the van, and off down the mountain.
* 1:30pm: Twelve miles down the mountain...we finally take off the chains and go above 30mph. Zack guesses it would have been faster and cheaper to have been towed.
The rest of the drive was easy by comparison, though the winds kept us on our toes. Beatrice really only started losing it around 7pm, with 1.5 hours left to go. So I got out the camera, and ... smiling, happy, cheesy Baby appeared!
No comments:
Post a Comment