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Date:         Sat, 5 Nov 1994 22:02:44 -0800 (PST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         H Steven Dolan <dworkin@netcom.com>
Subject:      Re: Iceskating

On Sat, 5 Nov 1994, John Ritchie wrote:

<much deleted stuff>

> Anybody else have any good bus-ice-and-snow anecdotes? None could match > the snowmobile trails one, but what do other people think about driving > their rigs in adverse conditions? (Synchro owners automatically get 10 > daring points subtracted due to special equipment!) :) > > John

> and Bobo Snowmobilebus, the `74 ATV >

Wa-all shure! I always love to tell war stories. (Especially since, in a '78 loaf, I get all the points). The very first thing I did after bought my bus was drive "around the block". From DC to Chicago, Seattle, LA, Fort Worth (for the Stock Show and Rodeo), Atlanta, and home. I left DC on December 24th. Toured the Black Hills on a day when the high didn't get above 0 F (golly, I love air cooling). That night, when I hit Rapid City, SD the temp was -30 and dropping. Hit bottom at -38 (really love air cooling). Learned how to drive *in * my sleeping bag and all about driving in cross-winds. Put the coke cans right on the defrost vent to keep them from freezing. The next day I viewed Devil's Tower at -20. Not bad. Looked cold.

But that wasn't the good part. The next day I left Wyoming, headed west into darkest Montana. As I passed Butte, it started to snow. By the time I hit Missoula, it was dark, the snow was coming down fast and furious and the snow plow I was following pulled off the road. The next 8 hrs I was alone in snow. After a while, I decided to pull off, but stopping seemed unwise without at least seeing a light at the bottom of the ramp and in northwest Montana, lights are rare indeed. The van handled extremely well in snow so deep that from time to time the snow was slowing the bus from scraping the belly. By 3AM I was in Couer D'Alene and dead tired. I stopped for gas and inquired whether the road got better or worse from there. I told him the last couple of hours had been the worst I had ever experienced. He replied that the road was closed and had been for hours. I was a bit relieved and said "Thank goodness, the road from Montana was hell." At which point he told me many things about my sanity, but let me know that if I had got thru from Montana the rest of the road was a breeze.

But (to quote Arlo Guthrie) this isnt' about snow, this is about 360's! I am willing to listen, but I believe I am the only person alive to pull off a 360 in a bus, on dry pavement, and drive away with an undamaged bus. In Arlington, VA, not 3 blocks from my apartment, I was in the middle of three lanes about to pass a car in the right lane, when a car in the left lane, passing me, decided to catch the exit we were all passing (at 60 mph). On cutting in front of me, he noticed the car beside him and slammed on his brakes. I followed suit, and cut left (dumb, really dumb). After a few hour/seconds, I wound up on the left shoulder, vertical, stopped, with an intact roof, and facing in the correct direction, with clean pants. I would amaze you all with the moves I put on the steering wheel, brakes, and gas (if I could remember them myself). I attribute my survival entirely to luck, pure dumb luck, and don't advise anyone else (even pros) try this at home. But I have stopped taking pleasure in telling passengers (in the middle of steep exit ramps) "Don't worry, VW's never skid......... they just roll over".

H Steven Dolan dworkin@netcom.com


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