Winter Has Officially Arrived

#250 charging in the first snowfall of the season. By the next day we had 26" of snow, that's almost as high as the charge port!

The East Coast got clobbered with one of the biggest snowfalls in a long time. We had 26" on snow in Montclair where my restaurant is (the car is charging near the back door). I drove home that night when there were only about 6 inches on the ground. The MINI-E with it's new snow tires did a fine job getting me home, even though I passed about ten cars stuck on the side of the highway on the way. The roads weren't that bad yet, I just think many people drive like idiots sometime and refuse to drive a little slower and more cautiously when there is snow on the ground.

So the next three days I drove my four wheel drive pickup truck to work. The restaurant was closed (along with the entire State of New Jersey) the first day after the storm, but I still had to go there to plow the parking lot and get it ready to open the next day. I put a plow on my truck in the winter so I can keep my parking lot clear without having to wait for a plow contractor to get to me. I also use it for my driveway at my home which happens to be 350 feet long and all uphill. My wife drove the MINI-E to work for a couple days while I used the truck to clean things up. It was so much snow I had to plow the lot about ten times and then use a snow blower to create giant mounds of snow about twelve feet high! One day I followed my wife for a awhile as our paths to work are the same for the first ten miles. I think it was the first time I followed anybody driving #250 so I had to take a picture of the car from the cabin of my truck following it.

EF-OPEC piloted by my lovely wife, and driving through "The Green" in Morristown, NJ.

So winter is back and along with it comes reduced range and a cold cabin, not exactly my favorite time with the MINI-E. However it still beats burning gasoline, spewing all kinds of pollutants as I drive and sending my money to OPEC. More on the cabin temperature in my next post!

Now it's getting ridiculous.

Yes, that snow pile next to the car is as high as the roof. This picture was taken in the parking lot of my restaurant today, a day after the biggest storm of the year. Actually it was the worst storm we've had in quite a few years. Some towns not far from here had 3 feet of snow! We "only' had about 18 to 20 inches but with the high winds and the drifting it was hard to get an accurate accumulation reading. There were snow drifts at my house that were up to four feet high. Mini-E #250 was safely in the garage for the past two days. I don't mind driving it in moderate snow but this was an exceptional storm and I was only driving my Tacoma 4X4 the past two days. This winter has been exceptionally severe. In fact, the normal snowfall total for this time of year is 18 inches and so far this winter we have had 48! Now that the roads are mostly clear #250 is back in action, at least until the next blizzard.