Today started out at 5:30AM with Dave and I getting in the truck and heading down to town. My sister was sick and I wanted to hang out at her place and help her with the kids. Dave had a doctor's appointment in the evening, so we thought we would both go down and he would work from town.
We found out very quickly that the breaks weren't working right on the truck. Must have done something when we got stuck the other night. Dave had to use the transmission to keep us going slowly enough. It was dark and cold and we had our chain-saw along because of the high winds - figured we might need to cut some trees out of the road, but that turned out not to happen. In any case, we then realized very quickly that the truck was also almost totally out of gas (another result of the escapades the other night, I imagine). The whole way down the mountain, we had to go back and forth between using the transmission to slow us down on the steep parts of the road and putting the truck in neutral to save the gas.
We made it down the hill (much faster than usual considering the road conditions, but I guess that is to be expected since we had no breaks...) and we spent the day in town. Tonight we groceries shopped and didn't get to head home until 8:00 PM. The truck was still in the shop getting the breaks looked at, so Karl Tyler Chevrolet gave us a loaner - a one ton dualley truck. Apparently dually are very good for hauling heavy loads but really, really bad for snow. Or so we found out.
The temperatures were rising fast on the mountain (between 40 and 50) and the road, which had been 6 inches of hard packed snow and very good for driving, was now hard slush with 6-8 inch ruts. We could hardly move. Spun our way up the mountain at about 2 miles per hour, swerving all over the road. Took us over an hour to get home. Then we had to feed in the dark and finally we were able to come in. Now we are warm inside and getting ready to climb into bed (hopefully for the rest of my life - I have been exhausted this week!). The wind is blowing so hard the house is shaking, but all in all we are doing well.
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