Road trip from hell...

This is a repost from my friend Cragar the Viking... [He was the driver]

"We finally made it back home... 18H40M later. Horrible weather conditions, throughout. Our story...We left our B&B at 8:17 AM on Sunday morning. Heading south, Highway 97 went from bare, to wet, to suddenly black ice within minutes this morning. We reached the crest of a hill, approximately 56 miles south of Prince George, when the car spun out of control, donuted twice, and landed into a deep snowbank/ ditch. Our saving grace may have been that the second my tires hit the snow on the side of the road, I was able to maneuver the vehicle just enough to not land in the ditch front-first or flip. My #1 objective was to try to make sure my passengers (wife and good friend) could avoid harm. The tow-truck operator later confirmed that last-second adjustment helped keep us, and the car, from major injuries. We basically slid down the snowbank at an angle. The three of us were unharmed. I could not open my driver's side door, because three feet of snow was pressed against it, so I had to climb out the passenger's side.

Being a true fan at heart, Mizzle instantly said upon landing, "We won't be making the Vancouver-Chilliwack game."

A truck passed by about a minute later, and took us 1-1/2 miles back north to a general store (located just south of Hixon). Neat place, by the way. The owner called for a tow truck to come, but then the dispatcher called him back about 30 minutes later saying that it was going to be a while. Apparently, several head-on collisions happened further south along the highway, as well as approximately a dozen automobiles in ditches in the 23-mile stretch between the general store and Quesnel (to the south)... Our accident may have been a blessing in disguise, because we were told we would have been at those places the times of the accidents and collisions. The highway was also temporarily closed, as a result of the collisions, wipe-outs, and black ice problems. After several telephone calls by the general store owner and probably 2-3 hours of waiting, we finally got word back that a tow truck was on its way.

I went with the tow truck operator, Dustin (from Quesnel). When we arrived at the car, a RCMP showed up. "S**t!!!" I thought to myself as tickets flashed in my mind scape. The police officer looked at the car, checked my license plates, then asked Dustin if he needed assistance (to which Dustin answered "no"), and then went on his way without even talking with me. Apparently, there were so many accidents due to the weather that the RCMP were sent only/mainly for backup assistance. The tow truck operator told me there was probably no way to truly avoid the accident happening, outside of not driving on the road at all. Towing my car out of the ditch was VERY reasonably priced... $105 (CAD). We heard another local tow truck operator charges something like $280 (CAD) per hour. My car had relatively little damage, considering the circumstances and the deep ditch drop. No visible outer/body damage, until his tow chain popped my passenger's side of the front bumper out by damaging the mud-protector behind it while hoisting. The undercarriage is a different story.

The thin metal plate that acts as heat protection between the tailpipe and fuel tank was severely damaged and dragging on the ground. It is also possible the exhaust pipe might be adversely bent and/or have a hole in it. The front-wheel drive alignment might be slightly off, as well. And there are some weird noises, possibly from the things already mentioned. I'm going to have things checked out further on Monday... At least it's my day off work. After getting the car back on the road... which was only wet by this time because it was midday and a balmy 35-degrees... I drove up the road to the general store, picked up my two road trip companions, and we headed south on our way. The metal plate, mentioned earlier, was dragging underneath the car. I wanted to stop at an auto body shop in Quesnel to have someone look at it but, being Sunday in Canada, most (all!!!) such businesses were closed. EVERY person stopped what they were doing to look at our car as we drove by, because the sound of the screeching metal rubbing the ground was so intense. We then stopped in Walmart to grab some tools, hoping bend the metal plate off the ground ourselves, when we noticed Walmart's "Tire & Lube Express" shop was actually open. The shop manager acknowledged such a broken part wasn't the shop's forte, but he agreed to take a look and do the best he could to resolve the issue. A while later, the manager and his co-worker somehow chained the metal plate up, because the bolts/hole had been ripped out and no longer usable (or at least not fixable at Walmart). But at least this resolved the drag/screeching problems. We continued on our way, and it looked like things were going to finally get back on-track.

WRONG!!! The temperature kept dropping, at times to 30-31 degrees, as we proceeded to encounter THE WORST winter storms I have ever driven in. Hills, hills, and more hills... all full of snow, sand, ice, crazy big-rigs, etc. We had to chain up. Although we were crawling along the highway at seemingly a snail's pace, we kept our sights on the end-goal (Tuesday's game!!! Just kidding). I'll be honest... it was scary. I was wide-awake from all the adrenaline rushes of the day's events, so my focus was totally on the road conditions. We filled-up the gas tank at Clinton, removed the chains (because the snowing had stopped), and then stopped at Cache Creek to eat at a 24-hour A&W restaurant.

From there, Mizzle took over driving for a couple of hours, to allow me some rest & recharge naptime, before I retook the position of driver for the remainder of the trip home. We stopped at a Tim Horton's restaurant in Abbotsford, but were too tired to eat the Timbits (yet). Thinking we were in the clear and the bad weather was behind us, Mother Nature decided to throw a mega-rainstorm onto I-5 between Marysville & Everett, causing vehicles to hydroplane in various places, just to keep us alert. We made it back home at 2:57 AM on Monday morning. "