it's a van! it's a snow plow!

So I leave the driveway in the War Wagon to meet the wife at the potential new pediatrician's office.

Take a left turn onto the road, fiddle with the heaters and radio for a second, look up...and notice a pickup truck with a plowing attachment barreling out of the driveway of one of our neighbors.

I'm twenty-five yards way, doing thirty or so on what looks like a plowed and sanded road, only to hit the brakes and find out that the hard-packed snow underneath the plowed part does not support my current speed in my current vehicle configuration (front wheel drive, albeit with brand new snow tires.)  Even with the old "lock the wheels, release, steer, repeat" technique, I can see that I'm headed for the passenger-side door of the plow truck, and that a bumper-to-door interface is imminent.

So I turn the wheel, aim for the snow bank at the side of the road, and slice into it, bringing the minivan to a cushioned stop.  Problem is, now I'm stuck in a ditch, and the plow driver has naught to offer but a shrug and a spit of tobacco juice.  (In all fairness, it was pretty much my fault for going faster than road conditions allowed.)

An hour and a c-note later, the friendly neighborhood wrecker has pulled me out of the ditch, and the Grand Caravan's front doesn't have a scratch on it.  Snow banks are great decelerators when you hit them at an angle.

*sigh*

All things considered, it was better than t-boning the plow truck, since all that got dented was my pride.  Still, that $100 could have bought a nice big bag of Happy Juice at the NH Liquor Outlet over by the grocery store.  Chalk it up to the learning curve, I suppose.