16 hours into a 9 hour drive, I finally make it home. (Rant ahead)

"DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully" (danceswithrotors)
02/17/2015 at 03:07 • Filed to: Snowpocalypse

Note to self: Never, ever, ever, flipping ever go to visit your family in Tennessee, the weekend of a named winter storm. It won't end well...

I left my mother's house at 0900, thinking I could make it back to Kansas at a reasonable hour... Oh, boy was I mistaken...

It took two hours to make the first 60 miles, up to Jackson, TN, because the westbound lanes on US-64, and then the northbound lanes on US-45 were neglected in the plowing... Apparently people only have to go east and south... Meh.

So, get up to Jackson, and think, "Okay, this won't be too bad...." US-412 looked pretty clear, and was, on through Crockett County, until I got to the Dyer County line... Where I was greeted with this sight:

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I found myself wishing the above picture were the case, later on... Merge onto I-155, thinking, maybe, it'll be clear, but it wasn't... At least, not until I crossed into Missouri, where there was at least one westbound lane clear, finally. However, that wasn't to last long.

I pulled into the Missouri Welcome Center over in Hayti, MO so I could take a piss break and clean the windscreen, around 1400, where the nice lady behind the counter let me know that I-55 was closed at Portageville, due to several wrecks. I wish I had gotten some good pictures from there, but I was busy taking a nap, since I had a gut feeling this was going to be a long day.

Anyway, I hung around the Welcome Center and was made to feel good and welcome by the couch and the television that did its best to kill the few brain cells that weren't frozen into stupidity from trying this stunt in the first place, and eventually, around 1530, the road did reopen. So, I went outside, did a quick systems check on the car, yanked the grille since it was blocked by ice, and went on my way.

Now, I should note that "open" does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, "clear"... It just means that MoDOT decided to take the Darwinian approach to allowing people to sustain their driving licenses. If you make it, you keep your license. If you crash and die, you don't.

Hooboy, let me tell y'all what, I wish I had a GoPro for the bit between Portageville and Sikeston... That was some sketchy shit, there... I'm pretty sure I was puckered the entire time, because despite how awesome winter tires are, there are limits to a RWD Volvo's traction on ice. I didn't explore them too much, but I flirted with the edge in a couple of puckering moments.

Around Sikeston, it did clear a little, but past there, it went to sheet ice, because fuck you, that's why. Let me tell y'all about driving on sheet ice... You grab onto the steering wheel, you place some empty eggshells under the gas pedal, and you place a couple more on top of the pedal, to make it extra ginger... Then, you shift as gently as possible and try to keep the revs down and the car out of its powerband, so it'll be more controllable. In my case, fourth gear at about 35 was sufficient... Don't push your luck on speed, like I did. I got to dance around a touch more than I wish I did.

Finally, around exit 80, which is...somewhere in Missouri, I decided I'd had enough of this, and went to get two triple McD's cheeseburgers and a large sweet tea at the Boomland convenience store/McD's/fireworks vendor, because I figured a self-induced heart attack would be preferable to driving in that shit. If the MoDOT website hadn't told me the roads would be clear past that point, I probably would've moved on to mixing the fireworks with the triple cheeseburgers to see what happens.

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Here's my Volvo, parked at Boomland:

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Fortunately, the rest of the trip was far, far less eventful, except for the occasional stumble at part-throttle, which makes me suspect the ignition amplifier is on its way toward becoming a doorstop/shooting target/placed in a pair of cement boots and tossed in the Missouri River/Buried next to Jimmy Hoffa...

Random picture at a gas station, after I discovered removing the headlight trim makes it easier to keep the quad squares clean:

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And so, after 16 hours, I finally finished my 9 hour drive... Meh.

DISCUSSION (17)

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 03:25

When I moved back from PA to Florida, I too got to drive in a snow storm. Though that happened in bumfuck WV, so there wasn't any traffic to deal with until I made it to Bristol. I had to use a knife to cut the ice off of my headlights and off of my grill. 1000 miles in one night, 10/10 would totally do it again.

pip bip - choose Corrour > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 03:29

sounds like fun drive.

as we don't have those conditions here in OZ

Viggen9er3 > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 08:31

Good story, fun read. Anyway, I am suprised that the winter tires didn't help much, regardless of RWD. RWD cars seem fine up in Canuckland in the winter.

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 08:31

Feel your pain, last year after new years my buddy and I drove back from Ann Arbor Michigan to NJ during that big snow storm we had. Took us 14 hours and we saw multiple wrecks happen a long the way. Almost got taken out by some Darwin nominee driving a 3rd gen camaro on summer tires. Dude spun out on a flat, straight stretch of road. We had to leave the road to avoid him, thank you low range and locking differentials.

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Viggen9er3
02/17/2015 at 09:18

Ice, rather than snow, without studs. And they did help, quite a bit. I was able to stay on the road, unlike a lot of cars I saw.

Bullitt Ride > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 09:28

To me this post just sounds like a bunch of bellyaching. Don't post a picture showing me that you can still see the grass in the ditch and make it sound like the conditions are unbearable.

I am jaded though seeing as I live in Canada. From December-April I get to drift everywhere in my Volvo 740. I love it... well the drifting in the snow part anyway... the living in an Arctic wasteland part sucks.

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Bullitt Ride
02/17/2015 at 09:39

You've never experienced what they call an ice storm in the southern US. Grass is visible, beneath a layer of ice. It's the ice that makes driving entertaining, especially when nobody knows how to treat a road beforehand.

Bullitt Ride > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 13:24

I've never experienced an ice storm? lulz
Google "Ontario Ice Storm"
In fact here's a picture I took just after new years this year of a sheet of ice slowly sliding off of the hood of the 740 after coming back from a drive in some freezing rain.

Kinja'd!!!

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Bullitt Ride
02/17/2015 at 13:31

Not a bad sheet of ice, man. Looks like the one on the front of the old girl, yesterday... But yeah, I was complaining a little, because after 16 hours, due to road closures, idiot drivers, etc., I tend to get a little cranky and whiny and irritated.

But, more importantly, turbo or NA 740? I know it's a 90+ because of the headlights, but the eggcrate seems to be a common swap for the NA guys to make. Also, wagon or sedan?

Bullitt Ride > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 13:48

Turbo sedan. Wish it was a wagon though.

There's a guy in town by me who has a red turbo wagon... I'm going to go see if he wants to sell it this spring lol.

CB > Bullitt Ride
02/17/2015 at 13:53

Remember that this is the south, where they aren't as prepared for this shit as we are. My North Carolinian roommate told me stories of different storms and how two inches of snow becomes a statewide emergency.

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Bullitt Ride
02/17/2015 at 13:55

NA sedan, here.. However, mine is manual, so it gets bonus points for that. That, and I'm picking up a 940 wagon, a week from Saturday.

The one car I sincerely regret ever letting go of was a '90 turbo wagon. I still miss that car, to this day... Swapped to a 15G, NPR intercooler, browntops and did a custom 2.5" exhaust from the downpipe back.

Here it is, next to the S60 I replaced it with... I shouldn't have done that.

Kinja'd!!!

Bullitt Ride > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 14:17

I've got a 15g sitting in the garage. I've been contemplating whether or not I want to go through with the hassle of swapping it over and having to do a custom exhaust. Do you have any impressions of a 15G swapped onto a stock motor, or did you do all of those mods at once?

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Bullitt Ride
02/17/2015 at 14:58

I did the exhaust, injectors and the intercooler first, then about five months later, did the 15G. It made the car pretty lively, and it spooled even faster than stock, but held it longer. Really, really worth it.

Ferrero1911 > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 15:40

So you're saying MoDOT doesn't care? Because they sure have a lot of signs trying to convince me that they do.

DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully > Ferrero1911
02/17/2015 at 15:42

They only care in the metro areas.

Ferrero1911 > DancesWithRotors - Driving Insightfully
02/17/2015 at 15:44

Yeah, they don't care about drunk drivers in the middle of nowhere either. I tried to call one in and they were barely interested in where I was.