Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mine was good, good food and lots of people at Cousin Paul’s. I made pecan tassies this time for ease of timing. They turned out a little weird and crumbly, and I did get a request for the cheesecake I made last year. The most interesting thing about this Thanksgiving, though, was the snow.
There was very little snow down in Akron / Peninsula area. As we were driving up to the Chardon area, though, it started snowing heavily and traffic slowed on the highway as the snow layered on. The worst area though was off the highway on the hills of Chardon backroads. There were a number of times when the traction control / ABS turned on. At Paul’s, many discussed the bad road conditions and difficult hills. The most affected by the snow was my brother.
After everybody else had arrived, we were wondering about my brother. Then he called, saying the roads were bad and they were closing the road ahead of him. He talked to my dad to try to get re-routed. He called again later for more directions. We started eating at this point. Over an hour after the scheduled dinner start, he called again and said he was stuck about a mile down the road, at the bottom of two hills so that he couldn’t go either way. So we prepared to go rescue him.
We had to get people to move their cars to get out of the driveway. My dad was going to drive his car, but Cousin Joe offered to take us with his truck. He got Paul to grab two tow straps and the three of us headed down. After a ways, we came upon his little hatchback, blinking lights on the road. We talked to him, then went up and turned around, pulled ahead of him. We looked underneath the front of his car, but there were no tow points at all. We eventually settled on having him turn around to get to some tow points on the back.
He ran one of the straps through these points so that we had two ends with loops sticking out. He turned around and backed up to near the truck. Then we had to figure out how to attach it. Joe had a tow hitch but no ball. So we wrapped the strap around the bumper and hitch. This left four looped ends for which we didn’t have a proper way to attach together. So we ran one loop through the other on the truck strap, then ran the end of that through the two loops of the car strap, and my brother finished with a double knot on the truck strap end. I was worried that it would come undone.
We set up communications via phone, then started pulling him up the hill. It worked just fine. Cars passing were a little worrying, and quite a few did, but they managed. The biggest trouble was when we got to the downhills. The first one, he said over the phone that he was just sliding, had no traction at all. I was watching him and at times he was starting to go sideways, off to the side, or coming toward us. He almost came up beside the truck at one point. I worried he’d run into the truck, or get pulled into a ditch or passing traffic. But Joe managed to steer and pace himself to keep the car positioned well enough. There was one steep uphill where the truck did struggle with traction a bit, but we continued going forward and made it.
It was about 3/4 mile until we reached the driveway. We pulled him past it and then got out to discuss what to do. A plow came by at just that point. He stopped to check on us and told us he was out on his fourth run. He then drove on. We realized there was now a berm of snow in front of the driveway, so we unhooked Joe and he pulled back and forth across this berm a few times. Then we had my brother pull in is my dad pushed from behind. Made it in.
Around two hours after scheduled dinner, my brother arrived with his desserts. Most people had already finished their desserts at that point, though some grabbed some of his peanut butter pie. I had to sit a bit to recuperate, then grabbed some myself. He grabbed his long awaited dinner and ate. Then he had dessert.
We discussed what we should do for getting him home. It was decided that he’d leave his car and come home with us, pick it up the next day. He would have to pull up to the front of the drive, so we’d have to pull out every car. So that ended up being the end of the event. Everyone made their way out and cleaned the snow off their cars and warmed them up, waiting for the people behind them. Some of the kids were reluctant to go, so this took a long time. We assumed my brother was still waiting at the back of the line, but he called and said he had left and made it to the main road. He had taken an alternate, less hilly route. He said to watch for him but he thought he could make it from there. And he did.
And the rest of us made our way as well. The roads and highway were bad and slow going for quite a ways, but eventually it cleared back to nearly nothing as we got near home.
Quite a first major snow for many of us not in the snow belt.