Weather when traveling

Although I have never been farther away than Hawaii or Mexico, I have had some interesting weather related adventures while traveling.
While living in Laughlin I flew into Las Vegas coming back from Oakland from visiting family to find that we had to circle McCarren airport for half an hour as a thunderstorm was raging below us. Then we had to wait while they basically squeeged the runway so we could land. It was an experience I will never forget to get a birdseye view of Las Vegas as we circled round and round watching the clouds hover over the south end of the strip and airport. It left me to deal with flash floods on the way home for 90 miles and rerouting through some interesting areas that I would never ever have seen of Nevada, Arizona and California to get back home that day. I learned where the high ground was at Searchlight, Nevada was and found my car could do more than 90 mph across the low flat part where I was trying to stay out ot the way of any flash flooding.

Then there was driving back from Tahoe when a freak snow storm hit the night before we left. I was with a group of women from work in my girlfriends mother's Lincoln and no one had ever driven in the snow. The carburator froze up twice, (once in the middle of highway 50 in downtown South Lake Tahoe while it was snowing) and once as we were leaving the next day. I lied and said I could drive in the snow because they all looked so scared and tired as we had not gotten much sleep the night before. They had closed Highway 50 the night before, we didn't have chains and we all needed and wanted to go home. We were broke, hung over, really, really grumpy and none of us wanted to spend another minute in each others company. It was not a fun 4 hour drive home. But it makes a good story now! My friend Beth found a phone booth (pre-cell phones guys!) to call AAA when the car died the second time while we were leaving Tahoe. We were trying to get over the "hill" as they call the beautiful Sierra's and there was a phonebooth but it was full of snow. Poor Beth climbed in up to her butt in snow to make the call. I stayed with the car and a nice man came by and got it started. I looked like a getaway driver when I careened around the corner to pick her up and keep the car running so we couOld get out of there. We fishtailed through the snow there and back on the salted and well ploughed Hiway 50 and I prayed all the way to Placerville where we stopped to eat get coffee. (Tea for me even back then.) What an experience that was!

Cal and I also were leaving Tahoe and taking the back way to see his Mom up in Arnold so we had decided to take Highway 4 across. It was October I think and there hadn't been much weather anywhere so he was going to show me the lovely eastern side of the Sierras. We got caught in a snow storm at night on this little two lane road over the mountains. They close it when it snows, and all I kept thinking is they would find us in the spring frozen to the car. Cal kept telling me it was fine, we didn't have chains but we didn't need them. I was so scared because I couldn't see in front of us or either side of us. When we got to his Mom's he was telling her how bad it was. I wanted to shoot him!!!! Then when I did get to drive it in the Summer, I have to tell you I was even more elated that we had made it at all! The road was even smaller than I thought, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and the drop off on my side was straight down into nothing but more trees. It is a road I love in the summer but never any other time.

The last adventure that I had was one of the earliest. My girlfriend Anne and I had gone down to housesit for her grandmother in Pasadena while we were on spring break one year in college. She had just lost her husband in an accident about a year prior to this so we had planned to go to Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm and do all the tourist things to have a good time. We went to the Ice House and saw some comedians that went on to become very big and hit some clubs while we were there. She had purchased a new super Beetle VW. It was beauty! On the way home, we were coming to the grapevine and we heard there had been snow but that it was still open. Anne was beginning to freak out as she couldn't drive in snow. I told her we could do this, they weren't requiring chains yet so we would be fine, just needed to go slow. She was still nervous, so I drove. We did fine going up. On the way down a 18 wheeler, lost control and started going down sideways. We had left plenty of room between us so I started doing what any smart person would do...I started to brake so I would slow down and stop. The ice decided we were going to go around like a top. Everyone else had pulled off to the shoulder so there was no one to hit, so we kept spinning around and the truck was like a wall coming at us. All we could do is sit there and swear! At least that's what I was doing. Anne hid her face in her hands and kept mumbling about her car. The car slowed enough that the only dent was in the hood where it kissed the underside of the box on the 18 wheeler. The nose cozyed right up under it and put that small dent in and stopped us. Didn't hurt anything else and we were fine. The trucker was fine, and police showed up minutes later and helped unwedge us from the truck and we were able to go on our way. As soon as we got to the next town we went and had a drink. I think we both shook for an hour after we got out of the snow. But then we had a good laugh and another good story to tell.. Hey, maybe I can drive in the snow!
Most of these people I have lost track of as it was so long ago, but these things, well, they make up the fabric of my life. Without them I would have had a lot of empty space. I hope you all have lots of stories of friends and places. How about sharing them?