The introverted thinker is in college and doesn't like to drive. Like her brother, she is doing college without a car to save money. She is in a dorm, her roommate is from here and she has two bicycles there, her racing mountain bike and her around town older mountain bike.
For Christmas she asked for a ski trip. We wanted to meet her father. I priced Crystal, but it was $355 just per night, not including ski tickets or anything. I started to look at Baker, but that is a 5 or 6 hour drive for her father. So I called the place we went last year. Stay in the hotel, get two lift tickets and breakfast and there is a ski bus up to the slopes. A 4-5 hour drive for us but way way less expensive. So we drove.
The introverted thinker and her brother are waiting for self driving cars. I think self driving cars will be programmed by humans so I am still highly skeptical. I also like to drive, some.
So I drove Snoqualmie Pass, and there was a storm warning and it was storming. We chained up and a chain promptly broke. Rats. We did not have snow tires. I had planned so we would be on the pass between noon and one and the temp on the top was 34 degrees. On the east side, it was 31. The conditions were partly covered with slush falling. The speed limit was lowered to 45 mph and people were mostly observing that.
The IT drove Blewett Pass in fading light, and was careful. I described how to steer towards the direction of a skid to regain traction and go light on the brakes. "Oh," she says, "I am so glad I did mountain biking!"
"Same thing?" I ask. She was girl's state junior varsity champ mountain biking as a high school junior. Washington has many less mountain bikers than California and on the western side of the mountains it's all wet root, slick leaves and sometimes ankle deep mud.
"Yeah," she said, "There is a certain kind of mud that is just like that and we learn to get out of skids."
I bought snow tires for the return. Snowqualmie was scarier on the return because the roads were wet, visibilty not that great, and idiots were driving 80 and passing on the right. And we had to stop and buy windshield washer fluid.....