I drove from Chicago to Madison in this nonsense

Kinja'd!!! "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/09/2013 at 00:03 • Filed to: None

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My gf and I had planned a while back to take a trip down to Chicago this weekend. Stay in a fancy hotel, see the Christmas decorations, go out drinking, visit my batshit crazy 89 year old grandma. The usual.

Before we left on Saturday morning, we checked the forecast for both Madison (where we live) and Chicago. "Light snow showers." Ok. We can handle that. Let's take !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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Around noon in Chicago as we were getting ready to check out from the hotel, it started snowing. I checked the weather radar map on the Yahoo Weather app on my phone. There were like, 2 green blobs of little snow showers and that was it. "Light snow showers." So we went to lunch with grandma, as planned.

We left my grandma's place in Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago at about 2:45 pm. It's normally about a 3 hour drive back to Madison. We got back at 7:15. It was snowing all the way. Fuck you Yahoo Weather.

Got home and checked the local news weather site instead of Yahoo Weather and they had !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But hey the Grand Cherokee performed admirably.

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DISCUSSION (17)


Kinja'd!!! PatBateman > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 00:13

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What is this "snow" you speak of?

-Houstonian


Kinja'd!!! Kailand09 > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 00:19

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Glad to see you weren't a part of the 30 car or 50 car pileup in the milwaukee area today!

I saw 5 accidents on my short drive on the highway this afternoon. People suck.


Kinja'd!!! Textured Soy Protein > Kailand09
12/09/2013 at 00:24

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The actual road conditions on I-90 were decent. The people driving on I-90, not so much.

There was a nice combination of people driving aggressively in unsuitable vehicles—I had a damned Mercedes Sprinter and Kia Rondo blow by me and I was going at a pretty good clip—and slowpokes camped out in the left lane. So many cars in the ditch, either because they slid off or crashed into something then slid off.

Surface streets in Madison were in much worse shape. There were less cars out but they were also driving just as stupidly. We get so much snow here, you'd think people would try harder to be decent at driving in it.


Kinja'd!!! Textured Soy Protein > PatBateman
12/09/2013 at 00:28

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It's the shit we have to drive through during Wisconsin winters in order to make up for our summers being nice and balmy instead of sweltering and intolerable.


Kinja'd!!! Kailand09 > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 00:29

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yeah, no idea how so many people have no clue what they are doing on the snowy roads.

Also super surprised how terrible Milwaukee area handles the local roadways. Downtown was TERRIBLE.


Kinja'd!!! Cajun Ginger > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 04:54

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Since when are our summers nice? I'd never even heard of a heat index before moving out here. October is usually nice.


Kinja'd!!! Takuro Spirit > Kailand09
12/09/2013 at 06:42

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Heh, I stayed home. Gonna be a fun ride into work this morning though.


Kinja'd!!! Kailand09 > Takuro Spirit
12/09/2013 at 07:26

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safe travels to you!


Kinja'd!!! Takuro Spirit > Kailand09
12/09/2013 at 09:04

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I survived! Freeways were pretty good, except for asshole Prius drivers that cut you off, then maintain a massive following distance to the car ahead IN THE LEFT LANE.

Did not hoon much though. Only street that was snow covered was in front of my house. Boo.


Kinja'd!!! Stupidru > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 09:31

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Glad to hear you made it back safely! I hope you had a little oppo-fun on your way out of that hellhole that is Chicago!

I told my wife that if we didn't both drive Subarus with winter tread, there's no way I'd want to be out there


Kinja'd!!! Textured Soy Protein > Cajun Ginger
12/09/2013 at 10:00

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I'm from DC originally. Summers in Wisconsin are fantastic in comparison.


Kinja'd!!! Textured Soy Protein > Stupidru
12/09/2013 at 10:02

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I did a few donuts in the unplowed church parking lot at the entrance to my neighborhood.


Kinja'd!!! Kailand09 > Takuro Spirit
12/09/2013 at 10:52

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Yeah I noticed slow drivers in the left too. I was surprised how clean the roads were this morning.


Kinja'd!!! Stupidru > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 11:30

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How much snow did you guys get in Madison? We got about 4-5" here a bit north of Milwaukee


Kinja'd!!! Textured Soy Protein > Stupidru
12/09/2013 at 12:11

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About the same here.


Kinja'd!!! ataraxia > Takuro Spirit
12/09/2013 at 15:33

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It's always a Prius, isn't it?...they can't wait to cut you off and then slow to 45 mph in the left lane. I've only been in one Prius-in Japan-and the taxi driver got lost-so maybe it's the car?


Kinja'd!!! ataraxia > Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2013 at 15:43

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You'd be surprised how stable those Sprinters are! I bought one for my previous employer and we drove the shit out of that thing. It went from Chicago to Windsor, Canada and Detroit more than a dozen times.

I was personally driving it one late snowy night back in 2009 when a fully loaded semi blew past us (the Sprinter was a high roof and it was empty at the time) and sucked the back end of the truck around so that I was facing the guardrail and trees at 45 mph. I pulled my foot off the accelerator and the stability control kicked in and whipped that thing around to the proper direction and I put my foot back in it and we kept going. An hour later, we swapped drivers and it happened to the other guy too...right after we passed two minivans in the ditch-headlights ala 'bat signal'.

The next time we drove up in the snow, we brought a pallet of scrap metal to put in the back...much better!