Another Exciting Day

This was to be a nice day, inspecting a claim in the local mountains. It was Dale’s day off from his county mental health job so he took some time off from his home health job to come along for a mini vacation.

The claim was close to a local ski resort where we recently took the grandkids. We thought that it would be a beautiful day because it rained yesterday so the air would be clear and clean.

We left a little late so although I’d brought the big camera along we didn’t have time to stop for photos along the way. We had some sketchy directions: take the 155 to the street into the development, turn left, look for the insured’s street, look up the hill and see the house. All of this in the forest.

As I just said we’d had a storm yesterday. It had rained and we had some wind, nothing that was anything to write home about. Last night Dale told me he had to put the snow chains into the truck in the event that we’d hit snow.

We left a little late forgetting the chains of course but went on our way. We got close to Alta Sierra and as we got into the area there was snow on the ground. As we got into Alta Sierra there was lots of snow. We didn’t panic because the roads were clear, and cars coming down the hill didn’t have chains so we were confident that all was well.

We turned onto the road into the developed area; yikes there was ice on the hill that we were going down. Dale drove carefully but we became concerned about returning up the hill that we were just sliding down. We got to the bottom of the hill and there was the insured’s house to the right with their street completely snowed in. Dale decided that he would continue up the hill, turn around to avoid the ice and then park in front of the insured’s street.

Dale started up the hill, hit some ice and the truck started sliding, sliding right into a ditch. I got out so that I could walk (slide on the ice) down the hill to the insured’s while Dale figured out the pickup’s situation. I walked down the hill then up the hill to the insured’s, everything completely snowed in from yesterday’s storm.

Someone in a 4x4 truck came by and Dale who was walking down the hill to join me asked if the guy would help us out of the ditch. The guy had a tow chain thank goodness. After much slipping and sliding our rescuer revved up his truck and hit the gas. Our poor truck was jerked hard but came out of the ditch it was in, whipped by some trees and onto some wet pavement. Our truck was free not only from the ditch but also from scratches as it was whipping around like a mad hatter ride!

Dale carefully turned around, came back down the hill and parked in front of the snowed in road to the insured’s.

By the time we left the sun had melted most of the ice; however we were on the edge of our seats when driving up the hill to get out of there. We were glad to get on down the road. Never did stop for photos with the good camera.