Front wheel drive RULES

 

The stepvan I drive on the weekends for the Sunday papers is a rear wheel drive vehicle.  Most of my cars and trucks have been rear wheel drive – well, the truck was a 4 x 4, but all the cars until my last two have been rear wheel drives.  In other words, most of my life experience of driving in snow is with rear wheel drive vehicles.

(my school bus is RWD too)

The last time it snowed anything like this (and not as much, either) I just left my front wheel drive minivan parked and walked.  This time around, I have a new car, a Dodge Caliber on new M&S tires that I’ve driven some 10,300 miles since I bought it in February.  I’m planning on adding 2500 more miles before the end of the year, by driving down to Southern California and back.  In a week.

(Notes; This is the longest stretch of below freezing temps, six days so far, in 31 years.  It’s still snowing, but some warm air is supposed to come in and melt the snow as it falls on the frozen ground – Freezing Rain – and I take some comfort in the fact that the stepvan has cable chains on it (the boss did it when I got back this morning) but… I’m thinking it’s a good night to stay home.

Airlines are cancelling flights into and out of PDX.  I-84 is closed.  White-out, with snow flying horizontally in heavy winds.  Drifting snow is closing lanes in both directions, Troutdale to Hood River.  The highway cams on TV show "don’t come near here" conditions.  My car is mostly white now)

Oh, but the title.

In the last lines of the last entry, I thought about driving downtown in the snow to check the PO box, but more coffee sounded good.

I didn’t make that coffee then; I drove downtown, in snow that woulda scared me in a rear wheel drive car, and I had just done it in that stepvan, and I was.  In my Caliber?  What snow???  Coming home, I saw I was doing the speed limit, 25 mph, with no effort.  Half a foot of snow on the street, but nearly no effort to get around.

And with a manual shift, if your wheels start spinning, just push in the clutch.  The tires will catch, adjust the throttle and off you go.

Yeah!

I. Can. Get. Around.

(Oh, but I need to be more careful, cuz I felt… invincible)

Oh, I’ll still need the chains – it’s the law in places I’m going – but I have to say it again – I love my Cali-Blue.

(and chains will be needed, I think, to get to NorCal and back)

Got some photos to tweak, maybe, of this "historic" snowfall.

They’re callin’ for A FOOT MORE on the valley floor.  Here.

…and it’s still falling.

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Samudra, the elephant born at the Oregon zoo recently, is seeing snow for the first time in his short life… and like some big ol’ kid, he’s rolling in it,, playing in it,,, having a ball with this neato white stuff.

*****