Max Fail

After a gazillion false alarms, we finally got a real winter storm yesterday with snow that sticks and everything. Started out with an inch or so of snow but by late afternoon the roads were covered with a nice slick sheet of ice, so naturally I spent all day driving, er, sliding around. I mean, you can't let an opportunity like this pass you by.

Anne & I hosted at church yesterday morning (open doors for people, hand out programs) so that was my first trip. Roads were not too bad. Later that afternoon a college friend of my son's needed to catch a flight home. Normally I would take him all the way to the airport, but instead of warming up the weather had actually gotten colder, so we decided we would take him to Beaverton to catch the Max (local train) out to the airport. Theoretically this would save him some time, and we would not get into the hills and expected congestion of Portland proper. We thought we left in plenty of time, but it seems the train had problems of its' own. Who'd 'a thunk it?

Redline direct to the airport is supposed to go all the way out to Beaverton, but without telling anybody, they had changed the Westernmost terminal to downtown Portland. So poor Dan waited 20 minutes for a train that was not going to show and ended up having to take the Blueline, which means he would have to change trains at some point down the line. On top of that the trains were running slow, so he not only missed his scheduled flight, he missed the next one an hour later and ended up having to spend the night in the airport.

We thought about having him come back to Hillsboro for the night, but it would have meant two hours by train here and two hours back at the 3 in the morning. I don't think trains are even running at that hour.

Anyway, pulling into the train station in Beaverton there is a bit of hill and the Mom mobile (front wheel drive Mitsubishi Endeavor) couldn't make it. The boys got out and pushed and that was enough, though they said they were barely pushing and they could hardly get any traction. Got passed on the hill by a couple of other cars. They probably had studs, evil road destroying cretins. Leaving the train station I tried to make a right turn, which went up hill on a main road, but once again the Mom mobile couldn't cut it. Even with Ross pushing. So I backed around the corner and went the other way, which worked fine.

The Mom mobile has ABS and Traction Control, and both came into play. Traction control kept the engine from turning much above an idle in the icy spots. I could press the gas pedal to the floor and engine would speed up to just above an idle for a half a second before slowing back down. The ABS was more exciting. The harder I stepped on the brake, the more noise it would make. All kinds of growling and shreiking. If you didn't know what it was it could be disconcerting.

Later that afternoon Kathryn had a baby sitting job. There is one little hill I drove down on the way there, but coming back I drove around the block to avoid having to attempt to climb it.

That evening cookie baking required additional supplies so Anne & I made a trip to the store. At this point the roads are so bad that you don't want to even stop at the stop signs, you won't get started again. Slowing down to two or three MPH, but not stopping means you won't spend the entire green light sliding around in the intersection.

Update December 2019 changed Eclipse to Endeavor when I realized I had the car model name wrong. Yea gods, how did that happen?