So I live in Montana. You'd think January would = cold in Montana. It's been raining since mid-December, but there's been a little snow mixed in here and there. Just enough to pack down nice and hard on our driveway.

Some people think snow is slippery. Actually, it's really not bad. Know what's slippery? Snow that's been thawed and driven on so much that it forms a hard sheet of ice. Know what's even more slippery? The before-mentioned ice with rainwater on top.

That's our driveway. Yesterday, as I was ascending our steep driveway in our awesome 4wd Toyota pickup that I used to think could go anywhere, I got to the steepest part of the road, which happens to also be a sharp left turn. The wheels started spinning. Uh-oh, but I'm sure I'll get traction in a second...nope. The truck slid SIDEWAYS and BACKWARDS down the hill...and it kept picking up speed...and picking up speed (remember, backwards and sideways), and I thought, I'm gonna roll my truck! Crap. Well, unfortunately I wasn't so mature as to say merely "crap." I wish it were so.

I like to think that I'm a good driver, that I know how to drive on ice and snow in pretty much any kind of weather. But, I had no category in my ice driving experience for sliding backwards and then sideways downhill. What do you do? I instinctively hit the brake and the clutch as soon as I realized that I'd lost traction (thereby breaking ice rule no. 1), but that only made things worse (of course). So, I thought, maybe I should release the clutch and let off the brake...nope, that only killed the engine and made me slide faster.

I came to rest perpendicular to our driveway with the front wheels on a grassy patch and with a low row of rocks and a dropoff to my right. Thankfully I hadn't gained enough speed to roll sideways over the rocks and down the hill - I would have ended up on Wulff Lane (our street) or possibly wrapped around a tree on the way to Wulff Lane. Praise God for grassy patches!

After I'd collected myself, apologized to God for the colorful language and thanked Him that our truck (and my body) was in one piece, I restarted the engine, stuck the truck in 4 low (super 4wd) :-), and crept up the lawn instead of the driveway, a route I'm sure to take until that darn ice melts.

The moral of the story? Wet ice is slippery. Don't even look at it too long or you'll land on your bum wondering what the heck happened.
kev