- Published on
Calgary
- Authors
- Name
- Joshua Edward McLaughlin Cox
- @uberthoth
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After a grueling drive from Lethbridge to Calgary where I hit a windstorm of unbelievable strength, the yakima skybox was nearly blown off of the car in winds reaching 90+ mph.
I saw multiple 18 wheelers blown off the road, and one (thankfully the other direction) blow over onto the road completely blocking southbound traffic. At one point the skybox began to open at the front, I imagine it was about to fail completely and the top was about to fly off. I pulled over at this point to attempt to reseat the lid in the wind. Just getting the door open was wildly difficult, I was able to open the side opposite from where the wind was coming from and reseat the lid.
I imagine if I opened from the other side it would have just taken flight into the nearby field. This, however, had no effect the skybox immediately began to open in the wind, even if I was driving as slowly as 30 mph. At one point, the winds were approaching 100mph and the skybox began to shake violently up and down, I opened the sunroof and started holding on to the front of the skybox with one hand while the other hand was on the wheel. This proved to be insufficient during the crazy 100mph gusts, and I took my other hand off the wheel and began driving with my knees while holding onto the box with both hands, the car was doing 30 mph at this point the wind was just wicked. I finally stopped in a tiny farm town (Claresholm), and got some ratchet straps at a local farm and industrial supply store This held down the box sufficiently and I was finally able to travel at highway speeds despite the insane windstorm, after finally getting to Calgary I stopped at a gold's gym to get an upper body workout, however my grip strength was completely depleted, so I largely did pushing rather than pulling exercises. Finally I made it to the olympialodge that night:
For dinner that night I ate at the club lounge next door which has a deal with the chinese restaurant next door, if you get the "club special" you get a choice from an appetizer item and two entrees. While not great for my blood sugar it seemed to be a great deal.