Rachel and I planned a trip to see our wonderfully "reasonable" friend, Molly, this weekend. I am pleased to report that we made it successfully to Madison early this morning. However, we would not have made it without the superb driving of Rachel. For those taking note, this weekend was that delightful blizzard that hit the Midwest including Madison. Being the stubborn twenty-somethings that we are, we decided that no blizzard would deter us from seeing Molly. In hindsight, it probably wasn't our smartest move ever. :)

To start off, we had planned to leave Michigan around 3:00 PM on Saturday afternoon (after Rachel's math class). Rachel had to swing by her apartment beforehand so she didn't get to A2 until 3:30 or so. To boot, she needed an oil change, so we swung by one of those "fast" oil change places... About 90 minutes later, we had gotten our jug of Starbucks, had a new air filter and fresh oil and were on our way. We had clear sailing through Michigan right up to the Indiana border. The sleet and freezing rain commenced and didn't let up the entire trip.

The roads were atrocious. Rachel drove 30-40 the entire time with brief bouts of 50 and 25. We were generally confined to the snow ruts in the lanes and passing was as hazardous as can be. Numerous cars were on the sides of the road, we saw a flipped pickup truck in Indiana, and we witnessed two cars traveling sideways down the freeways. Fortunately, we witnessed no accidents and were not involved in any either. The 45 minutes on I-90 in Wisconsin were probably the worst. The roads were covered in snow which when uncovered revealed a lovely sheet of black ice. The only good thing was there were so few cars on the road, we were able to drive without worrying about someone spinning out in front of us or crashing into us.

When we finally arrived in Madison, Rachel eased the VW onto the Beltline and proceeded to bottom out the car on the snow. After a minute or so, she managed to get the car moving again and off we went towards Molly's house. When we finally came to the entrance of her complex, we needed to cross the median of the divided highway. Unfortunately, the snow was too high and we couldn't make any forward progress. Rachel adeptly backed the car back into the the road, and we went up to the next light and made a left u-turn (slightly illegal). We pulled up at Molly's complex and I got out and helped push Rachel into a parking spot on the side of the road. With a quick wake-up call to Molly, we had finally made it to our destination...shortly after 2 AM Madison time...10 hours after we left. Not bad for a six hour trip, right?

I have only the highest of praise for Rachel's driving. I know I couldn't have done better and figure we would have been on the side of the road if I had been driving. Rachel did an incredible job getting us safely from A2 to Madison with only two minor incidents of fish-tailing along the way. The next time you need a driver, may I suggest the Capps Cab Company. ;)

Posted by Curt at February 25, 2007 09:00 AM