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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