(no subject)
Jan. 24th, 2009 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo, we had warm weather on Friday. The snow on top of the road melted into the slush/ice underneath the snow, making more betterer ice. This morning, as I was heading out the somewhat slick and unpredictable road, bright and early to go fuck with the water issue at 219, I saw headlights stopped ominously at the bad turn on the road. I pulled off where the Ray's Hill Tunnel is and walked up to the headlights, which belonged to a truck that was sideways (not very badly) on the road. It was still on the road and not in a ditch or anything.
There were three guys with the truck. The three guys were not summer people or friends of summer people or anything like that. They were coming down to measure windows for the house of one of the summer people. My thing is why the hell do they have to do this when the road is a fucking disaster? Summer people: Do not schedule work on your houses in the winter months. November through March, your house should be OFF LIMITS unless it's been above forty for an entire week straight.
As they were coming in the road, the three guys discovered that the road was, er, not nearly as melted out as the rest of the world. The more betterer ice, it made itself known and the driver lost all steering when he hit the brakes. At that point, gravity started to take over and the truckie, she went sideways on the ice leading to the aforementioned "truck that was sideways on the road" problem.
I figured I wasn't going to get to the plumbing at 219 so I called Mike Mortimore to go look at that. (He did. It's fixed. He busted the hasp on the door there. I will fix it on Monday.) After some argument (the three guys did not want to listen to me), we shoved the front of the pickup truck around so that said pickup truck was once again parallell to the road. The guy (younger than I am, somewhat timid) drove the truck down the hill. Once he got past where my truck was parked, I backed my truck down the hill too. I passed him (me, backing up. him, going forward) and we all stopped at the lodge where we considered our options.
Our options turned out to be "Fire up the dumptruck and spread stone all over the road while it continues to melt on you." Yay for that option. I hate playing with the dumptruck -- it's fucking huge and it drives funny with the plow on it and if I wreck it, then we have a very big mess. Ick. However, the pickup truck does not have a stone spreader attachment or a tilty bed. Dumptruck, ho.
Because the road was so fucking iffy, I *backed* the dumptruck up the road, spreading stones for my tires to drive on. I did not enjoy this. Not one bit. It was not fun the first time (to the top of the hill by DL's) and it was less fun the second time (up as far around the weird turn as we could get before the truck slid fucking alarmingly) and it was even less fun the third time (again up the weird turn past where it didn't work the previous time but not much better). At that point, everything but the horrifically bad section had been stoned. I took the youngest of the guys and a shovel and a load of stone in my little green pickup and we stoned the living shit out of the horrifically bad section. I backed the truck up past where the dumptruck would not go, practically to where it's flat. I totally could have gotten out by backing the truck up the road. (Not entirely sure what is wrong with the three guys, here. Can they not drive on ice?) I backed way past the "win" spot, the spot that if you get there, you have won and will get out. I stopped the truck and had the guy start throwing stone, which he did. He threw stone all the way down and I eased the truck down the road (very, very slowly) until we'd reached the truck-spread-stone. There were only a couple of times where I hit the brakes and the truck slid sideways against my will.
So then I discussed things with the guy (the truck belonged to the young guy) and he allowed as how he thought he could make it out the road. I gave him my cell phone # in case of a problem and wished him the best of luck.
He called to tell me that he made it out. Presumably that means Orpin (who really, really needs to get over the idea of living down here all fucking winter) will be able to get out tonight, too. Hell, I might even be able to make it out for work on Monday.
The inch and a half of ice on the road, however, it is not going anywhere. Fuck. It had better not snow anytime soon or I'm giving the hell up and parking the damn truck at the underpass and walking up the power line every morning and down it every night. I can *not* plow this, there isn't enough traction available.
There were three guys with the truck. The three guys were not summer people or friends of summer people or anything like that. They were coming down to measure windows for the house of one of the summer people. My thing is why the hell do they have to do this when the road is a fucking disaster? Summer people: Do not schedule work on your houses in the winter months. November through March, your house should be OFF LIMITS unless it's been above forty for an entire week straight.
As they were coming in the road, the three guys discovered that the road was, er, not nearly as melted out as the rest of the world. The more betterer ice, it made itself known and the driver lost all steering when he hit the brakes. At that point, gravity started to take over and the truckie, she went sideways on the ice leading to the aforementioned "truck that was sideways on the road" problem.
I figured I wasn't going to get to the plumbing at 219 so I called Mike Mortimore to go look at that. (He did. It's fixed. He busted the hasp on the door there. I will fix it on Monday.) After some argument (the three guys did not want to listen to me), we shoved the front of the pickup truck around so that said pickup truck was once again parallell to the road. The guy (younger than I am, somewhat timid) drove the truck down the hill. Once he got past where my truck was parked, I backed my truck down the hill too. I passed him (me, backing up. him, going forward) and we all stopped at the lodge where we considered our options.
Our options turned out to be "Fire up the dumptruck and spread stone all over the road while it continues to melt on you." Yay for that option. I hate playing with the dumptruck -- it's fucking huge and it drives funny with the plow on it and if I wreck it, then we have a very big mess. Ick. However, the pickup truck does not have a stone spreader attachment or a tilty bed. Dumptruck, ho.
Because the road was so fucking iffy, I *backed* the dumptruck up the road, spreading stones for my tires to drive on. I did not enjoy this. Not one bit. It was not fun the first time (to the top of the hill by DL's) and it was less fun the second time (up as far around the weird turn as we could get before the truck slid fucking alarmingly) and it was even less fun the third time (again up the weird turn past where it didn't work the previous time but not much better). At that point, everything but the horrifically bad section had been stoned. I took the youngest of the guys and a shovel and a load of stone in my little green pickup and we stoned the living shit out of the horrifically bad section. I backed the truck up past where the dumptruck would not go, practically to where it's flat. I totally could have gotten out by backing the truck up the road. (Not entirely sure what is wrong with the three guys, here. Can they not drive on ice?) I backed way past the "win" spot, the spot that if you get there, you have won and will get out. I stopped the truck and had the guy start throwing stone, which he did. He threw stone all the way down and I eased the truck down the road (very, very slowly) until we'd reached the truck-spread-stone. There were only a couple of times where I hit the brakes and the truck slid sideways against my will.
So then I discussed things with the guy (the truck belonged to the young guy) and he allowed as how he thought he could make it out the road. I gave him my cell phone # in case of a problem and wished him the best of luck.
He called to tell me that he made it out. Presumably that means Orpin (who really, really needs to get over the idea of living down here all fucking winter) will be able to get out tonight, too. Hell, I might even be able to make it out for work on Monday.
The inch and a half of ice on the road, however, it is not going anywhere. Fuck. It had better not snow anytime soon or I'm giving the hell up and parking the damn truck at the underpass and walking up the power line every morning and down it every night. I can *not* plow this, there isn't enough traction available.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 04:52 pm (UTC)Coming back, I opted for the better part of valor. I parked the truck at the top of the road and walked down the power line to get home.
I'll walk out tomorrow and probably the better part of this week -- it's not supposed to get any warmer and the road is going to continue to fucking suck until the weather breaks.
It's not worth the stress of trying to drive the road or fix the road at this point. It's fucking ice, it's more than an inch thick, and it's not going to get any better until it melts. From about the tunnel to halfway down the first hill, it hasn't got any stone on it. This is because I can't back the dumptruck up that far without it feeling like it's going to land in a ditch. I can get a pickup up there (forward or backward) but cannot stop it without having it slide gently sideways (as if to land in a ditch).
Because there's no stone, the truck slides all over coming in, slides helplessly. It's like trying to drive on a luge track. I'm not doing that. I'm just not. I can't get the fucking dumptruck up there to work on it and I can't stop the pickup if I get it up there because then I'm truly fucked and can go neither up nor down but only sideways into a ditch. No.
I will wait for better fucking weather. It will eventually melt (though probably not in the next ten days -- forecast suggests highs in the mid-twenties and additional precip of the "flurries" sort). Anyway, I need the exercise.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 04:46 pm (UTC)