![]() There was nothing you could do but slide and hope. We hit a patch of black ice-the worst SVV, a California native who’s been coming to Tahoe for 30 years, said he’d ever seen-and all the cars and trucks in front of us were going just 5 miles per hour and still careening into the vehicles in front of them. What followed may very well be some of the scariest hours of my life. We chained up and were back on 80 within 20 minutes. We pulled over on that exit to a line of 30 cars doing the same. I swear I would float through life in an aimless haze if it weren’t for him. Good thing SVV is a smarty-pants and also thought to grab the extra set of chains before we left. There we were told we also had to put chains on the trailer. Not three miles down the road, there was a chain checkpoint. Apparently not.) We suited up the truck and kept driving. (I was under the false impression that we were leaving winter, i.e. I’m only glad SVV threw our puffy jackets in the car just before we left our apartment. It was cold as the dickens out, and we were hardly dressed for being out in the snow-I was wearing very non-water-resistant TOMS SVV in his signature Chucks. As we were driving a Silverado sans four-wheel drive that was towing a 19-foot trailer, we pulled over on the side of the road after just a wee bit of slipping and sliding and put chains on the truck. We weren’t an hour east of the VVs’ house when the snow started flurrying. Needless to say, it arrived sooner than expected. Only, if there’s one thing I’ve already learned in the 10 days we’ve been gone, it’s that you can never trust. The road conditions seemed to have improved, and it looked like the worst of the weather for the day was behind us if we were going to wait until the following morning, then we’d really be in trouble as a full-blown snowstorm was making its way south. We waited it out a bit, hanging out with SVV’s brother Jim and our niece and nephew and indulging ourselves on one final feast my lovely mother-in-law prepared for our departure, and finally decided to just get going. So heavy snow in May is not only “not the norm,” it’s downright preposterous. In fact, we went to Tahoe more than half a dozen times this winter and took my little Altima every time but one…in December, January, February and March. But SVV and I had gotten engaged that very week in the Tahoe area just two years prior wearing bathing suits. Given the questionable conditions in Sac and the 45 degrees when it’s usually 70 to 80 that time of year, I guess that shouldn’t have shocked me. So imagine my surprise to find that four-wheel drive was required to pass at Donner Summit just before Tahoe. He asked me to check the road conditions for I-80, which I thought was a weird thing to do given that, again, it was May. ![]() Only, after I returned from Sunday brunch with Amy-a brunch, I should note, where it started hailing furiously in the middle of our visit…in Sacramento…in May (this is an oddity, for sure)-SVV was already loading up the trailer and ready to make an early escape. ![]() We left San Francisco for our epic road trip on Saturday, May 14, arriving at SVV’s parents’ house in Fair Oaks very late at night with the plans of leaving that Monday morning. I even laughed evilly in my head, thinking that for awhile I’d be back in the clear and someone else would see just what it’s like to walk in these size 8 shoes.īut it seems she’s sent it back my way. When my sister’s car was ravaged by hail and nearly had to be totaled out during those terrible storms that hit the South earlier this month-and then her roommate’s car (also damaged in the storm) was fully totaled by a crate that flew off an 18-wheeler in front of them on the drive from Knoxville to Memphis the following day, resulting in an eight-hour wait at a dingy rest stop, where coincidentally a blonde college girl had been abducted just weeks before, for the tow truck to finally arrive at 2am-I was just sure I had transferred my notorious luck onto her.
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