Traffic conditions this morning weren't very good, though it's pretty decent right now actually. A couple of piles at the intersections that are getting run over and could damage cars lower to the road. To a vehicle with plenty of ground clearance and reasonable speed, it's no big deal.

This morning was a little hairy, I felt like I was spinning a good bit the whole way, which I expected with the tires I had on the back and my lighter ballast load than last year. I just kept her nice and slow at 25 to 30 mph, gently applying throttle, shifting earlier than normally to keep the torque at the wheels down. I had to back up a couple times to gather speed to bust through some banks left in the middle of intersections. Aside from that my drive was reasonably safe by Northern Virginian standards.

Once my boss arrived, my first task was to blow the ramps around the shop. During the process, the snowblower sucked up a piece of heavy duty chain that was hidden in the snow. Of course this brought the machine to an abrupt halt when it jammed between the impeller and the housing. So until one of the techs cut the chain out of the impeller, we had to shovel. We were already having to chop up snow plow piles in order to blow them.

After shoveling cars out, my boss needed some errands done and our RWD Ford van definitely wasn't up to the task despite having over 2,000 pounds over Ayumi. With far more power at the wheels and poor weight distribution, just gently backing it up a gentle grade into a parking spot was nothing but spinning the whole way. I volunteered to do the errands in Ayumi. First a coworker and I had to take our snowblower back to Home Depot after we found out that the blower wouldn't readily move forward on a grade under it's own power. It wasn't doing very well to start with, though I'm sure the chain didn't help.

We cleared the back of Ayumi out and loaded it up and set off. By this point roads were much better and on sections of road I knew to be good shape I allowed myself to go to 35 mph. Then I took a set of tires over to another store in town, again in Ayumi. Then I took that same coworker home.

Who says you gotta have 4WD?