Date: Mon, 04 Mar 1996 09:37:07 -0800
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: glen buhlmann <gbuhlman@direct.ca>
Subject: Lief Gets Schmucked!
No, no, not nearly as bad as the last accident.
We were up at Whistler and it had been dumping all day. FOr those of you who
don't know Whistler, it's 1.5 hours north of Vancouver. For those of you who
don't know Vancouver, it gets snow maybe once or twice a year and hardly
anybody has snow tires and almost nobody knows how to drive in winter
conditions.
So we were pulling out of the upper Blackcomb lots to go down to the lower
lots because after about 4:30 you can't get back up to the upper lots from the
village (you need to take the gondola which stops running). We were going to
park in one of the lower lots and then go wait in the village until all the
yahoos managed to find the ditches along highway 99 (Sea to Sky Hwy - very
windy and very dangerous even on a sunny day).
Now we have snow tires so we pulled out of the lot but noticed that it was
VERY icy (what a great way to save money! - don't salt the roads until after
everyone leaves!). So we pulled over to put on the chains (an accessory most
Vancouverites have never heard of). While we were on the side of the road (a
fairly steep hill -- did I mention it was VERY icy?), a minivan (surprise,
surprise) comes spinning down the hill on his nice functional summer tires
(bet those things handle rain like nobody's business). He misses us by about
a foot. So now we're trying to hurry so we can get the hell out of there
before the next minivan comes.
A few minutes later a red K-car comes spinning down on some great-looking
summer tires and smashes into Lief's rear driver side quarter (why do I have
the feeling I've been here before). Not much damage, but man we were pissed!
It was some 18 year old kid from Port Moody (east of Vancouver -- also never
gets snow) in his mom's car.
This was EXTREMEMLY annoying since I had just picked Lief up from the Bug Shop
on Friday evening. So this was the first time we had really driven it.
Well, maybe next time we go to Whistler I'll bring a gun (any American out
there got a spare they can lend me ;-) ) and at lunch I'll come down and go
through all the parking lots and shoot 3 or 4 tires on every car with summer
tires. Then it might be safe to drive home.
Oh yeah it took us 7 hours to get home from Whister (yes I DID say it was a
1.5 hour drive). The kicker was some yahoo in a Toyota minivan trying for
half an hour to take runs at this steep icy hill on Hwy 99. I guess he
thought his summer tires would get better as time went on. Finally I got out
and walk up (kind of funny walking up to a car whose speedometer says it's
going 80km/h) and told him that he wasn't going to make it up no matter how
many times he tried and how many times he floored his accelerator.
Glen,
Proud owner of a slightly damaged 77 Westfalia
--
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| Glen Buhlmann | The meek shall inherit the Earth after we're |
| GB Computer Consulting | done with it. |
| Burnaby, BC | |
| <gbuhlman@direct.ca> | |
| '77 VW Westfalia | |
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