My business trip to Pennsylvania started out good. Krissy actually went with, it was her spring break, and a great excuse to go see Chrissy at school. Flying to Newark, NJ renting our car, driving to Altoona, PA (4 hour drive) went rather smooth. Visiting the location I needed too, all smooth. Even the 72 degree day on Wednesday there was rather nice.
Then the rain came Thursday, no problem.
Then snow Friday (3.16.07) morning, uh oh, I had 4 wheel drive no big deal.
Then more snow. More. Um, this is not going to let up, big storm coming in. Ok I think we should call the travel agent to see if we can catch an earlier flight before more of this big storm comes through.
Too late, all flights canceled. Call airline to see if we can get on a flight out of a different airport.
Nope, all flights are cancelled for Friday out of the New York, Philadelphia area. Pittsburgh, Nope, Washington Dulles, 11 AM Saturday flight, probably will be canceled though. Next available flight (that may be cancelled too) = 6 PM Saturday.
Being Krissy and I had her advisor’s (teacher) wedding reception to get back to at 5 PM on Saturday, our choices were 1) stay in PA and not get home till maybe Monday. Or 2) drive the 12 hours (plus stops for gas, driving through snow delays, etc) though the snow all the way home and maybe make it home Saturday morning.
Pick Option 2).
Start driving in Bethlehem, PA at 2:30 PM Eastern. Driving started out looking a lot like this:
Roads not bad, just lot of traffic, NO WAY are we going to make it back by 5 PM. Ok, traffic let up soon after, now we’re cruising.
Then the snow got a little worse, kept snowing. Drove by a few crashed-into-rocky-mountain-wall vehicles:
Also a few tunnels,
Hey, it was a break from the snow.
Then saw the Ford Exploder on its side:
A few more cars spun out, and/or stuck in the ditch:
Just before dark we got to see a jackknifed semi in the ditch as well as many more cars in the ditch.
Keep driving: I have 4 wheel drive, I can make it, only 10 hours to go.
Trying not to get too confident of this 4 wheel drive thing, yes I know 4wd helps you go, but still does not help stopping. Mostly I did just follow semi’s, they would really speed through the snow, makes ruts for me to follow.
The whole way through PA it was snowing, few spots worse than others, but snowed the whole 7 hours it took us to get through PA. We did have to stop a few times to get gas, thats when I noticed how ice covered the front of the car was:
We made it to Ohio just before 9 PM. That’s when things got better, only drove another hour or so through dusting snow, then wet roads, then dry. We made it through Ohio into Indiana a little after midnight, and pulled into our driveway just after 4 AM.
Yes this was a rental car, yes I did drive the whole way, yes it was a 14 hour drive, yes it was an adventure, yes we made it to the reception.
