Driving in the snow . . . not usually this hair-raising. I sold my first item on eBay this week and the buyer and I agreed to meet instead of having me ship it to her. No problem, right? The forecast called for snow after 8 p.m. So she thought she could make it between 3 and 4, but it turned out to be 5:15. Not a problem, except that it had started snowing around 4. Remember, I live on the Mountain. I do have four-wheel drive, but the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily. I put 85 Pounds o’ Love in the back of the Jeep and we headed out. Up the mountain no sweat.

But when I started down the other side I saw a car in front of me creeping, creeping. I put on my brakes and I saw why that car is creeping. It was icier than . . . I slid within a few inches of the guide rail. Okay, I get it, so I started creeping, creeping. We came upon another car trying to go up the mountain. I don’t know if he made it or not. We did some shoulder driving, me and that other car. I was in hi-4wd the whole time, but it was still dicey.

Finally, that car turned off and I was progressing nicely. Until I came around a curve and a van was sitting in the road/shoulder position in the middle of the curve. I started yelling, “Move, move, move!” and some other choice words. Then I slid onto the side of the road. But the van moved and we went creeping, creeping the rest of the way into town.

I met my very nice eBay buyer, she shared pierogies, blini batter, and Boyd’s Bears crates with me, I gave her what she bought (shh! It’s a surprise!), and we went on our way. Lucky for her, she was headed for Philly, which means she should have quickly driven out of the snow.

I headed back up the mountain. Well, I headed in that direction. I got to the same curve where the van had been sitting and in front of me was a car and in front of that a school bus. I couldn’t see what was in front of them, but it was clear they were stopped. And I stopped, and then I slid backwards, followed by sideways. Oh, what a thrill.

I managed to get my Jeep turned around and headed back toward town. Called my husband, told him I was taking the long way home. It was about 15 miles instead of two, but  when you live on a mountain, you only have so many alternate routes.

Slow go, snowy, then wet, then snowy roads. But no one stopped in the middle of curves and, when I finally got to the other side of my mountain, no one in front of me.  It’s a thrill to be home. Normally I don’t take the dog when there’s snow, but I didn’t realize how bad a quarter- inch of snow could be. Next time there’s any snow at all, he is not coming with me. He’s safer here and it’s one less worry for me.

And I missed the FL/AL game, which I had been looking forward to all week. OK/MO is about to start, but we think we know how that one will turn out. Looks like it’s USC for the Rose Bowl, too. Don’t listen to the pundits on that one.

Penn State won the Big Ten championship yesterday. I was there—at the coldest football game I’ve ever attended.  Also one of the best. There’s been a lot of doubt about Daryll Clark since his concussion but against Michigan State he looked like he did earlier this season. It was worth nearly freezing to death and not getting hot chocolate because they ran out of mugs!

And JoePa (that’s pronounced JOE-puh, all you ESPN commentators who get it wrong! As in “I say ‘Joe-puh,’ you say ‘terno,’ ‘Joe-puh Terno! Joe-puh Terno!’”) had his hip replacement today. Gotta get back in time for the Rose Bowl!

Daryll Clark would be a Heisman Trophy candidate.