Wednesday, December 05, 2007

December 3

Monday... I had several things I wanted to get done, but didn't get to... sigh. Seems I was either on the computer or the phone all day. Every time I turned around the darn phone was ringing. I think I'm going to have to set certain days when I just don't answer the phone. If it's important, they will leave a message. The only problem is, I have this curiosity problem where it kills me to not know who it was on the phone that didn't leave a message. I often think about getting Caller ID on my phone, but don't want to pay the outrageous price they charge for that.

The drive to town for Toastmasters was tricky. The weather was warm and melted a lot of the snow, so the roads were all wet... then all the water on the roads froze into black ice. For those who don't know what black ice is, it's not really black. It's just ice on the highway, so because it's thin it looks black as does the road. You don't even see it, then WHOOOOSH off the road you go. As I drove to town all was well until I came to a patch of black ice and suddenly my truck started to slide around on the road. YIKES! Thankfully, I got it under control again and proceeded down the road. This happened a couple more times, but much smaller than the first time, likely because I was driving much slower. Finally I 'clewed in' and switched into 4 wheel drive. This made it much safer. At Toastmasters I was an evaluator for one of the speakers. The meeting was wonderful, as always. Off to Tim Horton's for tea and Tim Bits after the meeting with 2 of the other people from TM. The drive home was much worse than the one in, because by now instead of a patch here and there of the ice, all water was frozen and the road was glare ice all the way home. I saw one truck in the ditch, and a bit further, saw where someone else had been in the ditch but had gotten pulled out already.

Unfortunately, many people with 4x4 vehicles, also called Sport Utility Vehicles or SUVs, think that they are invincible and can drive fast even on bad roads because they have 4 wheel drive. Well, not so. One thing about 4 wheel drive is that you can drive yourself further into the ditch than a 2 wheel drive, so get yourself stuck worse. The good thing about 4 wheel drives is, once you lock you front wheels in you have the weight of the engine over the front wheels so this gives some more control, and in the event that your back wheels break loose from the road and go into a skid, you can usually pull yourself out of it because the front wheels are pulling you. BUT you have to know how to drive properly and safely, even with this added safety element. Not sure if I explained any of this in a way anyone else will understand it.... unless you drive a 4 wheel drive too, but hopefully it makes sense to everyone.

No comments: