Let it Snow: Winter Driving Tips

Winter is definitely upon us. It is snowy misery here in State College. The cold and snow definitely impact desire to attend class and finish those last, dangling tasks of the semester. For me, those are two papers and a presentation. The cold just makes it so hard to open up Stata and do some analysis!

But given the weather, there are important things to consider when driving, be it around town or a long drive.

Clear the snow off your car. All of it. If you clear off just enough to see out a small hole on your windshield you put yourself and other drivers in danger. You can’t see enough of the road, even in familiar surroundings, to make the best choices. Furthermore, as snow blows off your vehicle it can be a distraction to other drivers. Sometimes there are also ice chunks hidden in your car’s snowhawk, those can be hard on other vehicles and injure pedestrians as they come off. It is also state law in Pennsylvania.

Know when conditions are ripe for black ice. Black ice can exist on roads in conditions up to a few degrees above freezing. It is very common around dawn and dusk when it can be difficult to tell if the road is just wet versus frozen. Especially on local streets that may not be treated as often, be careful!

Understand your vehicle’s capabilities. Four-wheel drive is not a license to drive like a NASCAR racer through snow, you will end up in a ditch and disappointed. ABS can help you brake safety in a spin out situation, but you’ll still be in a sub-optimal condition.

Pay attention to what is going on. I rely heavily on the excellent travel conditions websites put together by PennDOT, Maryland State Highway Administration, and WVDOT. At this point, most DOTs have websites with interactive maps and access to their traffic cams. Knowledge is power.

Always be closer to F than E. You never know when you might get stuck on the road for longer than you planned. Whenever possible, try to make sure you’ve got enough fuel to get to where you’re going. Power outages, traffic delays, and snow can all get between you and a full tank of fuel.

Be prepared for the long haul. Keep a blanket and/or heavy coat, non-perishable ready to eat food, a gallon of water, and a phone charger/fully charged phone in your car at a minimum. If you get stranded, you want to be able to keep warm, keep hydrated, and contact help. You never know how long you’ll be out there. I personally recommend peanut butter and crackers. Peanut butter is my favorite. It is hard to find a more calorie dense food that is so low maintenance to keep around.

Let folks know where, when, and how you are going. If you’re going on a longer drive, it’s important for someone to know where, when, and how you’re going. For me, when I tell my husband I’m heading to Morgantown from State College, he knows what route I’m taking and I tell him if I’ve decided to make a modification to my route. Another friend of mine uses Twitter as way of “checking in” when he’s out adventuring all over the mid-Atlantic.

There are plenty more things to keep in mind when driving in winter weather, but these are the tips closest to my heart. Be safe out there!

First Frigid Weekend

The holidays are here again. I think the only things I look forward to about the holidays are the scented candles. I buy enough of them so my home may smell like an autumn wreath or Christmas pine all year. I struggle most with having to spend more time indoors followed closely by drivers who make poor life choices in grocery store parking lots.

I fared my first very cold weekend of the season fairly well.

Saturday: Chris and I ate breakfast at home before running errands around town, one of which is to frame a piece of memorabilia from Expo ’86. I was conceived during Expo ’86 in the city where it took place, given the theme of that World’s Fair was transport and communications, I’m beginning to think my fate in life was sealed before I even got out of the womb. In two weeks, I’ll have that reminder hanging on the wall of the home office.

After these errands, we decided to find an easy geocache off Snake Hill Road. After we found the cache, rather than head back into town the way we came, appreciating the quality of this county road (as many county roads in West Virginia aren’t even passable by a regular car) we decided to see where it went. We discovered a back way to Masontown and Route 7. Route 7 is a favorite of mine, I’ve written about it and Decker’s Creek a time or two here. Even in the frigid temperatures, it is a beauty.

One goal I have set for myself is to work on my cooking skills. So after what I believed to be the adventure segment of the day, we did something we rarely ever do: attempt to go grocery shopping during the day on a weekend. Holy heck! I felt like if I wasn’t encroaching upon someone else’s personal space, they were encroaching upon mine. What also blew my mind was the poor parking lot etiquette. I do not understand why, especially, elderly individuals (often with handicap placards) find it necessary to stand in their vehicles in front of the entrance. Oftentimes, they do this while keeping their vehicle in gear which is especially dangerous.

To top it off, we watched Promised Land, a movie about the encroaching of natural gas into a small town in Pennsylvania, starring Matt Damon. I’d wanted to see it in theaters but for some reason the nearest it ever got to Morgantown or State College was Pittsburgh.

Sunday: Bingo at Mountain State Brewing Company. We’ve done this before, but this time our friend Courtney brought two of her friends, Kelly and Cody. So new friends, great food, and winning four of the seven bingo rounds—not bad for 2 hours on a frigid Sunday afternoon!

Afterward, we went to Sears to further investigate the possibility of a portable dishwasher. We were so pleased they had two models on the floor, but we were less pleased when after 30 minutes we left without even making so much as eye contact with an associate. It’s unfortunate when a company so desperate for money lets sales for big ticket items like that walk out the door.

Throughout the entire day, we had borscht cooking in the crockpot. We weren’t sure how it was going to turn out. Frankly, we were terrified we were going to hate it (so we had a contingency plan: delivery Chinese from Great Wall). When it was finally time to lift the lid off the crockpot and serve, it was actually pretty good—it just needed a little more salt and garlic. It was like a very hearty vegetable soup that happened to have beef in it. Delicious!

Now, in two months things aren’t going to have gone so well on a cold Saturday and Sunday. Though if the high cracks freezing, you can bet I’ll be hiking somewhere!

Winter Air Travel Tips

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Chris and I just returned from visiting my family in western Canada and have finally caught up on sleep and readjusted to the time zone—although I still haven’t readjusted to the colder weather in West Virginia.

Winter travel can be challenging! Roads are subject to snow and ice, storms impact air travel even if neither origin nor destination are affected, and delays days ago can send shockwaves through schedules of buses, planes, and trains everywhere. Our experience flying from Pittsburgh to Seattle on Christmas Day epitomized winter holiday travel struggles. A few tips and tricks helped us make the best of a bad situation.

First, before even leaving the apartment in Morgantown, we decided we were only going to do carry-on luggage. This meant we had to make a few sacrifices in terms of personal care items and clothing (we had to do a load of laundry in the middle of the trip). But given the flight schedule nightmare we were about to endure, this saved us a lot of hassle.

When we arrived at the airport in Pittsburgh, having already printed our boarding passes and checking no luggage, we proceeded directly to security. While in line it looked like something was unusual about our flight. As soon as we cleared security we proceeded directly to the gate for our flight (despite being 90 minutes prior to scheduled departure) to verify our flight information. Our flight to Washington, DC (Dulles) was delayed by 4 hours. This delay was great enough to cause us to miss our connecting flight to Seattle.

At this point, I left Chris to wait in line to rebook while I called United Airlines. I was able to talk to customer service at United and get rebooked on a flight faster by calling. Once you realize you will not make your connecting flight, you must immediately act to find an alternative. Sometimes the alternative flight leaves a few minutes before your original flight was scheduled, you don’t want to miss out on these options by spending hours in line at the airport. In the 45 minutes it took a United representative to rebook us by phone, the line Chris was standing in did not move.

So we were rebooked onto Delta Airlines at no charge to us. While United cannot control the weather and does not owe us vouchers for the delay, it is still their responsibility to get their paying customers to their final destination in as timely a manner is possible. Had we checked our bags in this situation, they could have still gone to DC and been delayed into Seattle.

While we were flying into Seattle, it was not our final destination. Our final destination was Vancouver, B.C. We had decided to rent a car for this leg of the trip (after realizing two bus tickets cost more than renting a car). This leads me to two points. First, if you are not traveling alone and rely on ground transportation to get somewhere beyond the immediate metro area of your airport, compare that cost to the cost of a one-way rental. Second, rental car companies hate having cars go un-rented. If a car is sitting on their lot, it is not making money. Even if you have a reservation, if there is a change to your arrival time and, correspondingly, your pick up time, call them and tell them you are still coming to rent that car!

We arrived in Seattle five hours later than we had originally planned, but were still able to make it from Pittsburgh to Seattle and ultimately to Vancouver with all of the belongings we had brought with us. It was a challenge but a few tips and tricks made the best of an inconvenient situation. To summarize:

• Travel with carry-on luggage only if you can!
• If your flight is not on or does not appear as printed on your boarding pass on the departure screens in the airport, immediately find someone with your airline to confirm details.
• If you need to be rebooked, it is good to both stand in line and call an airline’s customer service number, time is of the essence!
• If the metro area of you final airport is not your final destination compare the cost of bus/rail service to the cost of a one-way car rental.
• If you are renting a car and your pick up time changes, call to let them know you are still coming.