HOULTON, Maine — More than 20 years later, Kristi Mcatee still remembers the 42-mile “white knuckle” ride that she and a friend took over ice- and snow-covered roads and the “faithful” car that delivered them home safely.
Mcatee, a Houlton resident, said Friday that she was attending college at the University of Maine at Presque Isle when a heavy freezing rain front moved through the area. Mcatee, who lived on campus but commuted home each weekend to work at the former Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on North Street, was driving home with a friend.
“I had a 1985 Plymouth Gran Fury,” she recalled. “It was rear-wheel drive and it had studded tires, thankfully, because I really needed them that day.”
Mcatee said that the roadway was “glare ice.”
“It was like a skating rink,” she said. “I had both the front and the back defrost going at full blast and it was barely helping. The rain was just freezing so hard on the road. I was only going between 20 and 25 miles per hour because the roads were so bad.”
Mcatee said that it took her two hours to get home to Houlton.
“A half hour after I did, the State Police shut down U.S. Route 1 between Presque Isle and Houlton four about four to six hours,” she said. “The roads were that bad. I’d never seen that happen before.”
Although Mcatee said that her friend was “pretty nervous” that Mcatee was going to “send them flying off the road,” she said that the rear-wheel-drive car helped get her home that day.
Jamie York, sales manager at York’s of Houlton, said Friday that while “cars are just as good for stopping in the winter,” he said that trucks, vans and sports utility vehicles tend to be more popular in the winter in Maine just because of the rugged climate.
“People want them just because they are higher up from the ground and have four-wheel drive,” he said.
York said that in his opinion, the best vehicles for winter driving are the Toyota Highlander and the Toyota Rav4. Brand new, he said both can start out at between $26,000 and $27,000.
Mark Stewart, 55, of Presque Isle, said that he was “very grateful” for his 1984 Dodge Ram, which he used to drive during “every major winter storm that hit the area” until five years ago.
“There was just something about the way that truck drove in the snow,” he said on Thursday. “It felt like the tires had chains on them. I bought it a few years used and I had several new trucks at the same time, but every time there was a big storm, I dug that truck out and I drove it in the storm.”
Stewart said that he would still be driving the truck if the engine hadn’t have blown.
“I sure do miss it,” he said.
