The Crittenden Automotive Library

Let's play "Find the Beetle"

Let's play "Find the Beetle"

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
February 2, 2011

What did I say when I heard snow was in the forecast? "Yippee."

And now? "Where's my car???"

An interesting part of this blizzard is the lack of snow "on" my car, although it is snowed in from the drifting. Likewise, most of the cars parked near mine had little snow actually on them.

But nobody in my parking lot is going anywhere any time soon. Our plowing service is stuck in traffic on U.S. 14 And I'm not going out, new tires or not.

For years I had thought I could go in any kind of weather. In Colorado we didn't panic when it snowed. If our vehicles and we were fit, we went. Then I learned during a blizzard in 1976 or 1977, that there were, after all, times when you couldn't go. I spent 90 minutes getting out of the garage and 100' down the driveway and then an hour getting back in the garage.

The rest of the day was spent helping motorists who were stranded in deep snow. Several neighbors and I shepherded them through waist-deep snow into our homes and warmed them up with coffee and hot chocolate. I recall one elderly woman who told us that she would just walk home - "only a mile or so." Ha! There was no way we would let her do that. She wouldn't have made it 100 yards in deep, blowing snow.

We didn't travel in the mountains or on the plains without survival gear. The survival list in the Northwest Herald yesterday was a good one. Find it and stock your vehicle. I'll bet those folks stuck on Lake Shore Drive for 5-9 hours yesterday wished they had done so!