Yup. Totally irrational fear of open water. Bummer, coz I love sailing. I guess she's saving me money by not having a hole in the water I throw the money at. :)

She gets a lot of practice ;)

And Beth said you were mean to do that to her but she was laughing when she said it.

Several years ago we had a bad freezing rain storm. After a solid inch of ice was on the ground it warmed up just enough for it to drizzle rain so we had wet ice. It was stupid crazy slick. I idled all the way home. Going up one minor hill I held a 400 yard long sideways drift. I had to give it just a little power to go up the hill and that made both rear tires spin. Some idiot woman pulled out of a driveway and came to a stop in the road. There was no way she was going to start moving again especially after she gave it a lot of gas. I had to change lanes and drive on the wrong side of the road to go around her while maintaining the drift. . She finally slid off into her own driveway. Cars were in ditches everywhere. When I finally got home it was so slick I had to take little baby steps to stay upright. It took me an hour to get the cars up the hill of my driveway and into the garage. Fortunately those ice storm are semi-rare.

Mean to her, hell I scared the 5hit out of myself. Still don't know how we didn't go turtle, and very glad we didn't. I'd like to think the suspension setup was the saving grace. The stock suspension would have had the body roll to take us over.

We had a bad storm th first winter I was in this house and I went out the next morning, playing. As I sat at an intersection I saw an old man driving a jacked up farm truck get shoved off the road by some woman who had no business on the road because she wouldn't get out of the middle of the road. I got out of my Jeep ( a rather nasty old CJ5 that was worked to the max) and I told the old man to just stay put I got him. I pulled him out, he offered to pay me which I refused and sent him on his way. I headed back to my Jeep and the woman asked if I was going to pull her out of the ditch she ended up in. I told her nope, you just learned a valuable lesson.
You know it's bad when I won't help someone, especially a woman.

Yea, I know the feeling. I saw some dude slide his new Mercedes G wagon SUV into a tree and bounce it into a ditch. The way he was driving was 100% the cause. I had to laugh out loud. Even the best vehicle can't violate the laws of physics. It was fun to just motor past him.

We had a surprise storm hit a couple of years ago and I was driving the Mercedes. I disconnected the ABS , put it in winter mode and headed home, past 4X4's in the ditch and all manner of stupidity. I was stopped along the way because of a wreck that was being cleared off and the cop told me I was not driving a proper vehicle for the conditions. I informed the cop I was already twenty miles into my trip and that I was indeed driving the proper vehicle.
Some people just don't get it, nor will they ever.
The only fear I have about winter driving is the other drivers. Sure I have made mistakes driving in snow and such and on more than one occasion ditched my vehicle to keep from hitting someone when I screw up. Now having said that if YOU screw up and are heading at me, I will hold my ground. Go ahead, hit me, you will be paying for it

I learned to drive in the dune buggy my brother & I built. I was 14 and spent two years driving off road in mud and dirt. Mud is different than ice but the basic principals are the same.

Living in Alabama there was not much chance to drive in snow.

The first year I lived in Oklahoma we had a 8 inch snow storm. I was in my 914. The POS garage apartment I was renting ($90 per month furnished) had frozen water pipes. I called the land lord and he said he could not get there without tire chains. I asked what size chains he needed and where he lived. I drove to the store, bought the chains drove to his house and delivered them. Then I drove home and I did not have chains. Just a 914 2.0.

That thing would leave marks in the snow where the engine mounts hung down dragging through the snow.

What's this snow you speak of?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381239076.jpg

Pete, you get a different order of magnitude of that stuff than we do. And I am VERY happy about that.

Pete you are NOT allowed in Va until I exit Va

I wouldn't even know how to drive in snow. I am scared to drive in rain. I get spoiled in AZ.

Jeff, exciting about the cruise! I love cruises but I don't like the restrictions... Having dinner at a certain time, having to come back to the boat at a certain time, and there is only so much you can do on a bloat when you are traveling from port to port. I do want to do the Alaskan cruise. I heard it is amazing.

Beth and I looked into an Alaska cruise and found out that if you take one of the smaller boats you get to see a lot more stuff. Avoid the huge boats if you want better scenery

We did the 2 week Alaska vacation. The first wee was inland. We several day along the Kenai peninsula, then a train ride into Fairbanks and then over to the Mt Denali park. We rode horses at 10:30 at night and it was not dark yet.

Then a week on the boat. It was a great two week vacation.

That's it. I am adding this on my bucket list. Need to do this. Sounds awesome!!!!!

Go in eary July. The weather is prime. The train ride is awesome. The entire trip was awesome.

Spent a snow day pulling people out of ditches when I had the jacked up GMC Jimmy.

http://www.zipbang.com/cars/jimmy2.jpg

If the stuckees thanked us or offered to pay we refused money saying we didn't want to let them buy the feel good from us. One pissed guy didn't thank us so we asked for help with gas money. He refused. We pushed him back in the ditch and drove off to him swearing at us.

Man, that Jimmy was great! It would not only cruise over 8 ft drifts, it could push past high center and climb right over those 10 to 15 foot high piles made when they plow parking lots.

The Rover did pretty well the 3 days we've had of icey/snowy roads since I got it.

Really only had 1 car that didn't do okay on slick roads. The 90 928 GT, even with mud and snow tires it was scary. It tended to just slide down hill with both rear tires spinning no matter how much you slipped the clutch. And once you did get it going it had massive engine braking, you couldn't let off the gas without initiating swapping ends.

Not sure what the difference is but the GTS gets around okay even with super sticky dry weather tires. Got the $800 Rover to save the GTS from the idiot drivers. One lady in an SUV passed me doing 50mph on ice, then proceeded to slide sideways through a red light. Didn't learn either as she hardly even slowed down after blowing through the intersection.

Holy crap that cold front that went through yesterday was so bad my Ibanez actually went out of tune overnight

I'd love to do a real cruise, and an Alaskan one would be close to the top of the list. But, in the last 28 years I've managed to get Sharyn onto 5 boats (very briefly), and three of them were flat water cruises, one was partially open water, and the other made me sick also (and I'm still reminded of that 2 hour ferry trip often). This little cruise is really a 10hr ferry ride for me and the Tojo across Bass Straight - hence why she's flying.

I have got her to agree in principle that one day we'll take a cruise on the Rhine.