Dashing Through the Snow

It’s been an evening chock full of surprises.

It started around 4:15pm when my husband called saying his truck died.  We are currently having a cold snap in our area and his diesel truck isn’t liking it one bit.  It is cold enough that his fuel gelled and the truck wouldn’t stay running.

Traffic was slow as we’d gotten over 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and the roads were slippery.  I finally made it to his location in Eden Prairie around 5pm.  I drove him to a Holiday gas station, The Home Depot, and Bobby and Steve’s Auto World before he found the additives he needed to (hopefully) get his truck running.  

He poured the additives in and started it up.  It ran for a couple minutes and then died.  He kept trying but it wouldn’t stay running.  He finally called Bobby and Steve’s to see if he could get a tow, but they said they didn’t have anyone available, and work orders were piled up.

He had a little more of the additives left and decided to pull out the fuel filter and dump it all straight in.  (He was doing all this in -11ºF weather and then jumping into my car to warm up.)  Huzzah!  That finally worked and the truck stayed running!  He drove around the parking lot a bit and then pulled out onto the road.  A few blocks away was the entrance to the freeway.  I was following along behind him and knew something was up when he wasn’t accelerating past 35mph on the freeway.

He pulled off at the next exit and told me it wouldn’t go any faster.  He mapped out a route to avoid freeways and we took off again, down Shady Oak Road to Highway 7, to West Lake Street, without encountering much trouble.  

West Lake was very busy.  Shortly after crossing Hennepin Avenue, we had to stop for a light at Bryant Avenue.  Unfortunately, the truck chose that moment to die and refuse to start.  The right lane was partially blocked by a parked car.  We had a line of traffic behind us, including a city bus.  My husband kept trying and trying to start his truck.  

Just then, because there wasn’t enough going on already, lights started flashing and sirens started blaring a few blocks behind us.  An ambulance.  Well, of course, there was an ambulance!  There was nothing we could do but sit in the left lane with our flashers on.  The parked car left and the bus and remaining traffic pulled off to the side.  The ambulance had to go around us to the left into the oncoming traffic lane.  

The truck finally started and we zipped around the corner and parked, where the truck promptly died again.  After more struggles, he got it to fire up and we headed toward West 31st street.  The truck died at the light before we could turn on 31st.  Again we had a string of cars behind us.  The guy behind me got out and yelled if we were waiting for something specific.  I informed him that the truck wouldn’t start.  So that string of cars navigated around us on the left side (oncoming traffic lane) and went through the red light to get out of the way.  

Finally, my husband decided enough was enough.  He had me pull my car up in front of his truck and hooked up a tow strap between our vehicles.  Away we went, my 6-cylinder SUV pulling his 1-ton F350 Super Duty.  Since it was slippery and my car really wasn’t made to pull that kind of weight, it took a bit to get going at intersections.  One nimrod decided I was just going too slowly through the intersection and turned right in front of me when I was halfway through.  Thankfully, I didn’t hit him.

Slowly but surely we made it all the way home.  He had managed to keep it idling about halfway there, so I pulled over on our block, he unhitched the vehicles, and we were both able to pull into the driveway unassisted.  Almost 4 hours exactly, getting home around 8:10pm.

I had no desire to make supper when we got home, so I ordered Door Dash.  Then I remembered the 8+ inches of snow out front, so I slapped my coat and mittens back on to go outside and do a quick shovel of the deck/front walk.

I was almost done when I heard, then saw, one of our neighbors walking around the block.  “Oh good!”, she said, “I’m glad to see you shoveling.  It’s hard walking in the snow.”

“Well”, I said, “I’m not doing it all tonight.”  (Thinking to myself – In the dark, when it’s 11º below zero, the wind has started blowing, the snow only stopped falling earlier today, and we just had a 4-hour ordeal getting the truck home.)

She walked past and then had to drive her point home again, “Everyone else has already shoveled”, spreading her arms to encompass the whole block.  I’m honestly surprised she couldn’t hear my rolling eyeballs as they scraped the back of my skull.  It was pretty loud.

Shortly after that, my supper arrived and I laughed out loud.  The delivery person delivered my meal ON HIS BICYCLE!  I would have given him a second tip if I had had extra cash on me!  He was bundled up in winter gear and navigated the snow-covered roads like a pro.  I watched his little flashing red taillight as he rode away.

I love Minnesota!