Driving in the Snow

Thursday, I had an adventure.

I suppose it started at work, when my fellow software developers began talking about how it was supposed to snow.  They were looking at live satellite maps of the snow storm approaching.

Now, for those of you who don't live in the Portland Oregon area or the Willamette Valley in general, you have to understand something.  We don't get snow often.  When we do, if it's more than a light dusting, everything shuts down.  Everything.  Oregonians handling snow is akin to Southern Californians and their ability to cope with rain.  Except worse, because snow is rarer here than rain is down there.  Usually in the winter, it's clear, dry and cold, or it's cloudy and in the mid to upper 30s.

Well, we experienced a snow storm (and if you live in the mid-west, you would laugh that we call it that).  The weather here has been so dry, I've felt my lips crack.  Which doesn't happen often.  Yet, in spite of the dryness, we got snow.  Very dry, powdery snow.

Now, on Thursdays and Fridays after work in Beaverton, I drive over to the Chandlers' house to give piano lessons.  (They have eight (soon to be nine) children, and I teach lessons to the oldest six).  Because of the snow, they offered for me to stay the night, and I accepted their offer.

The snow began falling in earnest around noon, and by 2:30 most of the employees had left work.  I decided to as well.  Under normal conditions, it would only take me five to ten minutes to get to the Chandlers' house from work.  But today, it took me half an hour to get to their street, due to heavy traffic trying to escape the snow.  When I got to the entrance to their street, there was an accident right in front of their street (a truck had slid into the ditch).  So, I went further down the main road to take the back entrance to their street.

Finally, I found the street I wanted to turn onto, but I had to wait a minute because there was a car with its emergency blinkers on, and a truck parked in front of it.  They were just starting to pull out.  Once they had, I turned off the main road, but then my car got stuck right where the other car had been.  The snow was a bit thicker on this street since there wasn't any traffic to keep it from accumulating.  I then realized that the car had probably been stuck too, and the truck had been pulling it.

"Well," I thought, "this isn't too bad.  I'll just put my chains on."  (I keep chains in my car, in case something like this happens.)  So I got my chains out and began to detangle them and lay them out.

About this time, the driver of the truck that had pulled out the other car came by.  He offered to help pull me, and I said I'd probably be fine, I just had to put my chains on.  He said, "are you sure?  'Cause I can help you if you want."  He seemed like he really wanted to help, and I realized it might be faster than trying to put my chains on (I had done it only once some years before, and I think it may have been a different vehicle).  So we looked for a place in the front of my car that his chain could hook to.  But we found no secure place.  (I guess my car isn't very towable).  Finally, I said, "thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.  It just looks like I'll have to go with my chains."  The man offered to help with the chains, so I got them out.  He looked at them and said, "Oh, these are the new kind.  I'm only used to the old-fashoned kind, I'm not sure what to do with these!"  He then looked at his watch and said, "My wife's going to be home soon, I need to get the driveway swept.  I just live over here -- "  he pointed to the house right next to where we were on the road.  "If you get stuck with anything else, just let me know and I'll see what I can do."

I thanked the man and got to work.  I started with the left rear wheel.  I slid the chain behind the tire, and the brought the two ends up in front and connected them, and then slid them on top of the tire.  I then connected the chains hanging from each end with the big red hook connected to one side.  So far, so good.  Now to tighten the whole thing.  This involved taking a long red chain and running it through a red metal "hand" (for lack of a better term that comes to mind -- it is shaped roughly like a lego minifiure's hand, except bigger and slightly flatter).

PROBLEM.

I couldn't get the "hand" to reach.  I investigated, and found that this was because another piece of chain had gotten jammed into it.  I spent about five to ten minutes struggling to get it unjammed, but to no avail.  Finally, I took the whole chain off of the tire, so I could try to unjam it more easily.  Still no success.  Well, that's frustrating.  I decided to come back to this chain, and put the other chain on the other rear wheel.

At this time, the man came back from shoveling the snow off his driveway and asked how it was going.  "Well," I said, "One of my chains has a tangle because one piece is jammed into another."  I was thinking I might ask to borrow a pair of pliers.  I picked up the chain to show him -- and the jammed chain fell out of the "hand" as if it had never been jammed.  "Oh, what do you know," I said.  "It came free."  I grinned sheepishly.  "Well, I should have these on pretty quick."  And I did.  It only took me another five minutes, and I had both chains on.  "Alright, best of luck to you!"

"Thanks," I said, and got in my car.  I put it into drive, and slowly depressed the pedal.

My wheels were still spinning.  Perhaps the chains weren't tight?  I put the car back into park and went out to check the chains.  They were still tight, but I managed to tighten each one a little more to be safe.  I got back in the car again and tried to go.

Same thing.

Suddenly, it dawned on me.  "Hold on.  WHICH wheels are spinning?"  Duh.  I have FRONT wheel drive, not REAR wheel drive!  I had put the chains on the wrong tires.

Oh well.  I got out of my car and undid my chains.  My car had moved just enough that the chains were now stuck under the tires and I couldn't get them free.

At this point, another man came by and asked if he could help.  I explained my problem and the mistake I'd made.  We both laughed.  "Here, I'll push your car from behind while you drive and we'll see if we can get it off the chains."  So we tried that.  No good, my car wasn't going anywhere.  "Here," he said again, "Put it in reverse and just back off them."  Oh yeah.  Duh again.  And it worked.

I put one of the chains on the front left wheel, and the man put the other one on the front right.  I finished first (I was very used to these chains at this point), and I went to see how the man was doing.  He was just finishing.  "It's not super tight," he said, "But it will do to get you to the end of the street."  I thanked him for his help.  At this point the first man came out to see how we were doing.  (The two men knew each other since they were neighbors).  I told him how I'd put the chains on the wrong tires to start with.  We all had a good laugh again.  They then wished me the best of luck and I began to drive down the street.

A couple of times I was alerted by a "thump thump thump thump" noise, and I had to stop and tighten the chain on the right wheel.  The second time I realized that the man hadn't connected the big red hook at the top.  So I fixed that.

I got to the end of the street -- and it was a dead end.  Oops.  This was the wrong street.  I had missed my turn!  Ha.  I'd gotten stuck and spent the better part of an hour trying to put on my chains -- on the wrong street.  So I turned around, headed back to the main street, found the turn I had missed, and pulled up to the Chandlers.

I was amazed that while on the one hand I made so many mistakes on one drive in the snow (getting stuck without chains on, getting a jam in one of the chains, wrong pair of wheels, wrong street), that nothing bad happened.  But I shouldn't be amazed at that -- at least in that it is unusual.  Of course I made mistakes.  I'm human.  I do that all the time!  (Plus I haven't had a ton of experience driving in snow.)  And of course I was safe.  Although God gives no guarantees that nothing bad will happen (in fact, quite the opposite -- calamities are guaranteed to happen in this fallen world), God will and does keep us safe in potentially dangerous situations, many of which we probably aren't even aware.  It is definitely not something to take for granted.  It is something to recognize that God does for us often, and to be grateful for it.

A couple of take away lessons:

1. Humility -- a lot of times we do things that aren't smart.  (I should have put my chains on before I drove off from work -- and put them on the correct tires to begin with!)  When you make a mistake, just own up to it.  Don't beat yourself up for it (Oh what an idiot I am!).  Doing that is actually a subtle form of arrogance.
2. Gratefulness -- God kept me safe.  He certainly didn't have to.  He had every right to send my car into a ditch.  God also brought along some people to help and make sure I was ok.  And -- this is pretty big for me -- God unjammed my chain.  Really.  That piece was STUCK.  I could not get it out.  It was wedged in tight. Then, when I picked it up to show the man how it was stuck, it slid right out.  Seriously, I think that was a miracle.  I am very grateful for that.

So, that's it in a nutshell.  Walk humbly, and be grateful.