It rained most of the way here from Corona. I babysat the kids today. When I got to Hwy 38 there was nothin’ but taillights as far as I could see, the line was at least a mile long. The first thing I did was call Linda and tell her of my situation and ask her if she’d mind taking care of the dogs. She said we could stay at her mom’s if we couldn’t get up the hill tonight because the snow was really coming down. (It looked like they got maybe 5-inches in Mountain Home Village, which is below 3000 feet.) Someone came by going the other way on the highway, and said that they closed the road because there was a really bad accident involving multiple cars. I only had a ¼ tank of gas left (I wasn't expecting to run into this kind of snafu), so I went to the Thrifty gas station in Menton and filled up my gas tank at $1.15 a gallon, took about $28.00 but at least I had a full tank now. I used the restroom before heading back up and I thank God I did because it was a long wait. I called CalTrans as I was driving to the gas station and the recording said that the road was open but that they were requiring chains on all vehicles, no exceptions. I decided to stop at the ranger station and put chains on because at least it was dry there and well lighted. I didn’t know if it was still raining/snowing further up the hill. While there a man pulled in next to me and I asked him if they had closed the road and he said they hadn’t got that far and that he was told they were only letting residents up. There was a ray of hope because if they were letting residents up I could go home, however, I still had to wait in that long line of cars. As I approached the viewpoint I could see a yellow CalTrans light board and a bunch of lights, I thought that was where the accident was and that they were going to turn us all back but it was a chain stop with a CHP car there checking to make sure that people had chains on. The whole back up was due to the stupid people who thought they could blow past the chain stop. Since there was an officer there they had to pull over to chain up or turn around and go home. That is what caused all the back up. Stupid People!!!
After I got through the chain stop it was clear driving all the way up the mountain. There was only one time when I had to pull over and that was when a Highway Patrol 4X4 escorted a snowplow past everyone. The road wasn’t bad at all. I made it to our turn-off and ended up behind the snowplow going down our street. I was praying that he didn’t bury our walkway and that there was room for me to park. Thankfully, he didn’t bury the path too badly and he left plenty of room for Eric to park behind me across the street. As soon as I got home all I could do was laugh at how much snow had fallen. The berm is a good foot over the picket fence and its ten feet wide! Just like the last storm.
After I got through the chain stop it was clear driving all the way up the mountain. There was only one time when I had to pull over and that was when a Highway Patrol 4X4 escorted a snowplow past everyone. The road wasn’t bad at all. I made it to our turn-off and ended up behind the snowplow going down our street. I was praying that he didn’t bury our walkway and that there was room for me to park. Thankfully, he didn’t bury the path too badly and he left plenty of room for Eric to park behind me across the street. As soon as I got home all I could do was laugh at how much snow had fallen. The berm is a good foot over the picket fence and its ten feet wide! Just like the last storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment