Well, I had some moderately extensive - and dangerous - travels these last days.
I was in my hometown over Christmas, visiting my mom. I then took her to the hospital for hip replacement (she was successfully operated on on Tuesday
), and day before yesterday, I traveled to southeastern Bavaria to visit my two future bosses and pick up my snazzy work laptop!
It's been quite cold recently in Germany, and the eastern part has been hit by snow. So to make sure, I took a somewhat circuitous route to always be on Autobahns. All in all, it took my 7 hours, but I was on time for supper.
Not really worth discussing.
Then, yesterday, from there up to my university town - which should be a rather easy 3.5 hr drive. My friends told me weather for the trip was looking fine, really cold but sunshine all the way.
Yeah, haha.
I hit the first snow cloud not a half hour out. Then several further going north through Bavaria - one even strong enough to coat the road with some snow quickly.
But that was nothing compared to Thuringia.
Halfway through, near a town called Schleiz, there's a long downhill/uphill part. The construction that had been going on for years there and to the north is finally finished, but now there was a fire truck standing at the beginning of the downslope with flashing warnings: Accident and Extreme Ice Conditions!
So I drove down the hill carefully. Luckily, not much traffic, though people on the other side were creeping up, not really a traffic jam but moving slowly. At the bottom, traffic slowed down on my side considerably as well, and we passed the accident site. Seemed to be a truck which had either loaded something hazardous or had lost gasoline, there was a hazmat truck there and everything.
But this did not take very long, and I accelerated...
And then it started to snow. Really, really hard. The world pretty much disappeared in front of me and everything was grayed out. Snow on the road piled up rapidly, and soon everyone was down to driving like 25 mph and being super careful. I'm pretty sure this is the most extreme winter conditions I have driven through, and I'm really happy it was still daylight!!
But I got though without trouble, and by the time I reached my place, it was mostly clear, dusk, and Venus was blazing in the heavens.
