I wasn't watching close enough as the rain slowly turned to snow

 I was driving up the Angeles Crest Highway that goes up to at least 6000 or 7000 feet like I had done with my parents since I was a child of maybe 6 or 7 years old when we first moved near there to Tujunga and eventually to Glendale where we lived when I was 8 years old to 21 years old.

So, this was where my parents and I often liked to hike the Silver Mocassin Trail over towards Twin Peaks. 

Only this time I was driving my new 1968 Camaro that was metallic blue mostly. IT was a really great cornering car and the most powerful car I ever owned up until then in my life. So, it was a dream on corners with the low slung body and wide tires I had on it. 

However, I was listening to music in my car likely and I wasn't paying attention as the temperature dropped and then slowly I might have seen that there was something inside of the rain drops hitting the windshield. But, remember I had grown up mostly in Los Angeles County and never had driven in snow likely at that point in my life. 

I had been to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico at age 17 to go to a private school for my senior year of high school but I wasn't allowed to have my 1956 Ford Station wagon Surf Wagon there in Santa Fe, New Mexico so even though I learned to live in the snow in winter there I never learned to drive in the snow in Winter there.

So, suddenly I was spinning in a circle next to a several thousand foot dropoff from the road and I thought I likely was dead either way. But, somehow I had manuevered the car to spin closer to the center of the road in the rain turning to ice on the road. I wound up facing backwards the way I had just come up the road and when I came out of the fog in my mind from almost dying I slowly but surely very gingerly decided to drive back down out of the mountains because this car is REALLY not suited to driving in snow (unless I had snow tires or snow chains or both on the two rear wheels which are the drive wheels in a 1968 Camaro. 

The Lesson from this:

If you haven't driven in snow before you might not know the signs especially if you mostly have lived in a place like Southern California, Florida or Hawaii.

The point is watch the temperature gauge in your car very carefully. Because in 1968 we didn't have outside temperature gauges in most cars then. Also people mostly were not driving on Radial Tires either which also might save your lives in the snow more especially if they are something like Radial Michelin

All Weather tires which I now run on all my vehicles because they are truer on the road than most other tires and seem to last forever unlike most tires. But, this is just me.  

For example, I notice even a Subaru Forrester handles better at higher speeds with this tire on board. But, mostly this type of tire can save your life in wet or snowy weather. However, I didn't know any of these things then in 1968 or 1969.

One way to spot these changes to the rain from rain to snow or sleet or whatever it is changing to even hail is to look inside the droplets as they hit your windshield and snow can start even in temperatures as high as 35 to 37 degrees outside because the drops (Snowflakes) are coming from above you where temperatures are usually colder than on the ground.

So, watch your outside temperatures because most vehicles have this type of outside temperature gauge somewhere on the dash board now. Because doing this and watching for a little ice crystal inside of a rain drop hitting your front window means you need to really slow down. In icy weather mostly if you aren't used to driving in it you should be going about not over 25 to 30 miles per hour for safety and if you are going downhill remember you cannot use your brakes to stop but you can downshift your car if you do that carefully and don't go into a spin or sideways in the changing nature of water to ice or snow on the road.

So, be aware of these things and stay alive wherever you are. Eventually you will become an old hand at surviving driving in the snow. For fun when I lived in Mt. Shasta and my kids were little we would even spin the car sometimes for fun by turning the wheel fast and putting on the emergency hand brake which often will spin the car around. 

However, this isn't something you do until you have mastered driving in all kinds of snow, hail or sleet in all conditions. It's sort of like riding a bicycle with no hands and sort of a similar kind of thing to do.

When I was 22 I got stuck in Utah at a Park City Ski lift parking lot by doing this with my 1966 VW Bug and had to dig myself out of a snow bank in 1970. So, you have to really know what you are doing in the snow to survive these kinds of situations whether you drive or ski or walk in the snow or ice wherever you are on earth. 

However, I kept my 1968 Camaro until my son was 4 years old and I needed to move on because I was a single dad raising him. So, I traded my 1968 Camaro for a Toyota longbed Truck and then bought a cabover camper for it too that I could put on or take off with Side jacks. I could use the truck for work and even camp with my son in it which I did the summer of 1979 by parking this camper on friend's land and helping a friend build his house that summer. So, I had to hire babysitters for my son which was expensive but it all worked out until I got married again in 1980 to a lady I met in Mt. Shasta with two kids from her first marriage.

So, learn to drive in the snow or you should let someone who knows how to drive in the snow otherwise you might not survive driving in the snow. It's not easy but you can learn if you are careful and never use you brakes going downhill ever in the snow if you want to stay alive and in one piece. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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