The 30th Annual Xmas Jam in 2018 (Vol. 20 by release standards) was a two-nighter...
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I have to share this story from that Jam.
My usual runnin' pardner and I attended both nights.
Night One was business as usual - great show, wrapped about 2AM, hopped in the car and got home about 3:30.
Night Two was met with an ominous forecast that morning - in an incredibly rare display of meteorological solidarity, all the weathermen who make a fine living being right about 34% of the time were insisting we were gonna get a whopper of a snow in Western NC. Predictions were it would start after midnight, and we could get 12" or so by morning. This is where all you northern hemisphere folks can have a good laugh. But the thing you have to understand is us folks down south have no equipment or systems in place to prepare for and keep functioning during even the mildest of inclement weather. Hell, I remember a couple times our kids were out of school just because they thought it might snow. They watched cartoons all day and not a single flake fell.
With the gloom and doom forecast, I basically had to guilt my buddy into going. "This thing is moving from the south to the northeast. We'll keep an eye on things. With this path, when it starts coming down in Asheville, we'll hit the road and beat it down the mountain. I'm going regardless of what you do, but you've already bought a ticket, and this is gonna be great. I'm peeling out at 4:30. Usual meeting spot. I'll look for you." He was there. I drove. Turned out to be a blessing.
One thing you have to understand about 99.9% of the snows we get in NC since climate change - they start out wet because of a milder atmospheric temp, many times as rain, make a transition through sleet to snow and usually take about an hour of snowfall before anything will stick. This particular night everything I just described was a heinous lie. The temp was well below freezing when things began to manifest so everything stuck from the get-go. Truly an anomaly in these parts.
We kept tabs on the weather throughout the night. About midnight, it was coming down pretty good. We weren't leaving before Grohl and 'Play'. Turns out this was the one and only live performance of that piece. The Jam is always special. Checked conditions after Grohl's set. Everything was white. Oh shit - we gotta go.
My theory of beating the storm down the mountain was, let's say, unintentionally but tragically flawed. We left Asheville and the roads were already white. There's about a 6-mile stretch coming down the mountain out of Asheville. This was the crux of my 'beat the storm' theorem. We'd hit the bottom and things would be markedly better. Whoops. My bad.
We made it to the bottom and my buddy said, "How the hell did you get us down the mountain without crashing?". "I used low gear all the way." His reply - "Damn, I never even would have thought of that." And that's where the blessing that I drove comes in.
We hit the bottom of the mountain, and it was a total whiteout. You couldn't tell where the road ended and the grass began. Hands-down the worst weather I've ever driven in. It was so cold the defrost couldn't keep up with the wipers icing up. What was normally a 1:15 trip took us over 4 hours to make. But we made it unscathed.
Two days later, the weather had moved out but the temps stayed unusually cold. I ended up with about 18" accumulation where I live. That's a big WNC snow. I have a gravel drive that's about 250' long and the best way to facilitate clearing is making a couple passes in the car and creating some tire ruts that'll melt much faster.
I made it home driving 75 miles in 4 hours in a total whiteout because live music is that important.
Two days later I got stuck in my yard trying to get down my driveway.
Sometimes the music gods are smiling.
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