What is in your significant others vehicle?

[Sniper-T]

everyone has their own demons... I have blizzards, others have hurricanes...

[ak474u]

everyone has their own demons... I have blizzards, others have hurricanes...

You forgot about the polar bears.

[Sniper-T]

meh! they're a backup food source! Basically a slower, tastier version of 'meals on wheels'

Best part, is if the grid goes down, all you have to do is wrap yourself in cats and go outside and call them...

"Here bear... Here bear!"

[Domeguy]

And by "cats", I'm sure you mean sled dogs.

[Sniper-T]

meow-ush!

[Socalman]

For over 50 years our family, starting with parents, has owned places in Big Bear City, Ca. About 35 years ago, my wife, daughter and a couple of our friends decide we are going up to the mountains for a ski weekend in January. We leave about 7:30 in the evening on Friday for what should be about a 2 hour trip. It has been raining fairly hard all day. At the bottom of the hill police are stopping traffic, allowing only residents up, if you had chains. No problem, my drivers license listed our mountain place as a 2nd address. A few minutes later we are not even at the 2,000 foot level and we have to install chains. Not a problem, I had been putting chains on for many years. We are now driving very slowly in a line of vehicles in heavy snow. At one point near one ski area, Snow Valley, the traffic comes to a complete stop. We sit for quite some time, maybe 45 minutes and then begin to move slowly for about 1/2 mile and stop again. Snow is coming down as hard as I have seen, I find it odd that a plow has not come down the road for a long time. We keep starting the engine and run the heater as it is quite cold in the van I drove. I finally notice that there are no cars behind us. Odd... We are last in the line. We are only about 15 miles from our goal and about 65 miles from home. About 12:30 am a worker from Cal Trans tells us that a large slide has closed the road ahead and they will to clear it until dawn. I clearly recall his words, "If you value your rig AND your life you need to turn around and head down the mountain. You can hardly tell where the road is at it has not been plowed for hours. He helps us turn around. We move very slowly, and then I notice the heater is not working. Good thing we were headed up to ski, we were able to add layers of clothing. Soon the blade on my passenger side wiper goes flying off! Thrills keep coming. Soon everyone has had to pee. No problem for Jim and me but the ladies were not thrilled, squating in the freezing snow. Jim is now constantly rolling down his passenger window and leaning around and trying to brush snow off the windshield. The thrills keep on coming! We are getting down lower about the 3000 foot level and one of my chains breaks and wraps around the rear axle. Fortunately I was going very slowly. Now with just one stinking flashlight my buddy and I are underneath the van trying to untangle the chain. After some time we get it off the axle, and now we are really crawling down the mountain. At least the snow is not so heavy and I do know the road. We get to the area where we can remove the one remaining chain and now can move as the snow is not here, only rain. It was 4:15 am when we got back to our home and went to sleep.

What did I learn from that trip? The first is that since then we have two mylar space blankets in each vehicle. Maybe I should have 4. Since we were going for a weekend, we had food and had been snacking, but the only liquid was beer and in those conditions I was not about to drink. We both carry GHBs in the cars with food and a small amount of water. During the winter we have enough to keep alive if ever trapped in a similar situation.