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Let's go buy a Land Cruiser with my dad... Part 2
Again, skip this if you're not interested.
We're trucking north on I-5 with some snow/rain starting to fall. It's still plenty light outside but the clouds are building. My dad is following me at 50-55mph in the slow lane because I'm thinking my wipers are possibly the original ones from 1977 and I'm terrified I'm going to wreck this beautiful rig before I even get it home. I'm starting to get concerned, we're nowhere near the Seattle area, let alone Tacoma or even Olympia... hell, I don't think we've even passed Centrailia yet! I check my phone and it says we have another 4 hours to go, I'm guessing the Seattle area traffic has been taken into account by the Waze app so I'm not surprised as most people in Seattle are not fond of driving in the white stuff.
The Seattle area snow driving motto is this "It's not ME I'm worried about, it's the other people." Which loosely translated means "I'm not great at driving in the snow, throw some other people in the mix and maybe a stop light or a slight curve and I can't promise I won't hit something.... or everything." I find it funny because the rest of the northern states drive in the snow with minimal issues. Washington is unique in this. 2 years ago we had some ice form on our road just as everyone was leaving for work. One of my neighbors crashed his car at the bottom of our hill, then I watched him walk up the hill, get his other car and crash it in to the first, then he walked back up the hill and drove his wife's car in to all of the other cars at the bottom of the hill, two of which were his. 9 years ago, it snowed 4 inches while I was at work. It took me 3 hours to go roughly 16 miles to get home. When I finally arrived a gold colored Nissan Pathfinder greeted me from my front yard having driven over a curb, sidewalk and a hedge of 6 foot tall laurel bushes to land on my lawn. The driver was "Glad I showed up, because he didn't know how to put his car in 4 wheel drive." Needless to say, I'm basing my concern on some real world experience.
My worries are not unfounded today either. Along the way we see a number of drivers who have decided they'd like to leave the roadway and park in a ditch or cause other similar issues. We pass a guy on the side of the freeway putting chains on the back tires of his Honda Accord.... there is still no snow on the ground. I radio to my dad to tell him, I need to hit the next rest stop. I'd like to check the oil. I'd also like to see if I can fix the wipers and wipe off the inside of the windshield a little better, it was getting really foggy inside. We pull over at the rest stop, my dad hits the men's room and I get out and pop the hood on the 40. I turn around and there's a 50 something grey haired lady smiling at me who seemingly came out of nowhere. "Is that a Willys?" She asks. I said, "No, it's a Toyota Land Cruiser." She doesn't skip a beat. "My grandfather had a Willys that same color, Is everything okay? I see your hood is open. did you know it's about to snow really hard?" I thank her for her concern, and assure her everything is fine, I'm just checking the oil. The oil is fine, it's burned none that I can see so far. I close the hood and check the wipers. No blades to speak of on either side and the metal pieces that hold the rubber in place are lightly contacting the brand new windshield. I rub some RainX on it haphazardly and dry off the inside of the windshield. As I toss the rag in the back I notice the brake lights are on. I open the drivers side door and wiggle the brake pedal... they turn off. I note that there is a future repair needed on the brake light switch. I can handle that.
Just then my dad walks up behind me, "Hey, do you want to stop and grab lunch?" Normally I'd say yes, but we have 4 hours to go and the rain mix is starting to stick. I let him know that I'd rather get this thing home and go out to dinner instead. I'd just talked with my wife as we were pulling in to the rest stop and the snow has already started sticking up north, she was on her way home. It was around 1:00pm. My dad agrees we should keep on trucking, so we leave the rest stop and get back on I-5, traffic is slightly slower than before but it's okay, I can't use my wipers and I'm 100% relying on the magic of RainX to do it's job. My driver's side mirror loses it's grip on the mounting ball and flops down once I hit about 50mph. I reach for the crank to roll down the window so I can adjust the mirror, but it's soaking wet... the whole driver's side door panel is soaking wet. I feel around as I'm driving and everything from the floor to the ceiling is dripping. Not just water, dirty, road spray water. This must be why my windshield won't stay fog free. Lovely. Fix the mirror, roll the window back up and glance at the gas gauge, It claims I have less than half a tank. Something doesn't seem right, I had just filled the tank in Portland. I was driving pretty fast but, that seems unlikely. I keep a close eye on it for the next hour or so and it's slowly edging toward 1/4 of a tank. We're getting close to Tacoma now, I check my phone and it's still estimating 4 hours to our house... did we go back in time??
To be continued...
Again, skip this if you're not interested.
We're trucking north on I-5 with some snow/rain starting to fall. It's still plenty light outside but the clouds are building. My dad is following me at 50-55mph in the slow lane because I'm thinking my wipers are possibly the original ones from 1977 and I'm terrified I'm going to wreck this beautiful rig before I even get it home. I'm starting to get concerned, we're nowhere near the Seattle area, let alone Tacoma or even Olympia... hell, I don't think we've even passed Centrailia yet! I check my phone and it says we have another 4 hours to go, I'm guessing the Seattle area traffic has been taken into account by the Waze app so I'm not surprised as most people in Seattle are not fond of driving in the white stuff.
The Seattle area snow driving motto is this "It's not ME I'm worried about, it's the other people." Which loosely translated means "I'm not great at driving in the snow, throw some other people in the mix and maybe a stop light or a slight curve and I can't promise I won't hit something.... or everything." I find it funny because the rest of the northern states drive in the snow with minimal issues. Washington is unique in this. 2 years ago we had some ice form on our road just as everyone was leaving for work. One of my neighbors crashed his car at the bottom of our hill, then I watched him walk up the hill, get his other car and crash it in to the first, then he walked back up the hill and drove his wife's car in to all of the other cars at the bottom of the hill, two of which were his. 9 years ago, it snowed 4 inches while I was at work. It took me 3 hours to go roughly 16 miles to get home. When I finally arrived a gold colored Nissan Pathfinder greeted me from my front yard having driven over a curb, sidewalk and a hedge of 6 foot tall laurel bushes to land on my lawn. The driver was "Glad I showed up, because he didn't know how to put his car in 4 wheel drive." Needless to say, I'm basing my concern on some real world experience.
My worries are not unfounded today either. Along the way we see a number of drivers who have decided they'd like to leave the roadway and park in a ditch or cause other similar issues. We pass a guy on the side of the freeway putting chains on the back tires of his Honda Accord.... there is still no snow on the ground. I radio to my dad to tell him, I need to hit the next rest stop. I'd like to check the oil. I'd also like to see if I can fix the wipers and wipe off the inside of the windshield a little better, it was getting really foggy inside. We pull over at the rest stop, my dad hits the men's room and I get out and pop the hood on the 40. I turn around and there's a 50 something grey haired lady smiling at me who seemingly came out of nowhere. "Is that a Willys?" She asks. I said, "No, it's a Toyota Land Cruiser." She doesn't skip a beat. "My grandfather had a Willys that same color, Is everything okay? I see your hood is open. did you know it's about to snow really hard?" I thank her for her concern, and assure her everything is fine, I'm just checking the oil. The oil is fine, it's burned none that I can see so far. I close the hood and check the wipers. No blades to speak of on either side and the metal pieces that hold the rubber in place are lightly contacting the brand new windshield. I rub some RainX on it haphazardly and dry off the inside of the windshield. As I toss the rag in the back I notice the brake lights are on. I open the drivers side door and wiggle the brake pedal... they turn off. I note that there is a future repair needed on the brake light switch. I can handle that.
Just then my dad walks up behind me, "Hey, do you want to stop and grab lunch?" Normally I'd say yes, but we have 4 hours to go and the rain mix is starting to stick. I let him know that I'd rather get this thing home and go out to dinner instead. I'd just talked with my wife as we were pulling in to the rest stop and the snow has already started sticking up north, she was on her way home. It was around 1:00pm. My dad agrees we should keep on trucking, so we leave the rest stop and get back on I-5, traffic is slightly slower than before but it's okay, I can't use my wipers and I'm 100% relying on the magic of RainX to do it's job. My driver's side mirror loses it's grip on the mounting ball and flops down once I hit about 50mph. I reach for the crank to roll down the window so I can adjust the mirror, but it's soaking wet... the whole driver's side door panel is soaking wet. I feel around as I'm driving and everything from the floor to the ceiling is dripping. Not just water, dirty, road spray water. This must be why my windshield won't stay fog free. Lovely. Fix the mirror, roll the window back up and glance at the gas gauge, It claims I have less than half a tank. Something doesn't seem right, I had just filled the tank in Portland. I was driving pretty fast but, that seems unlikely. I keep a close eye on it for the next hour or so and it's slowly edging toward 1/4 of a tank. We're getting close to Tacoma now, I check my phone and it's still estimating 4 hours to our house... did we go back in time??
To be continued...
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