Vacation in the Blizzard of 2003

March 22, 2003

I am not going to write an entire document on the Winter of 2002-2003, so now that Spring is finally beginning, let me just summarize the Winter, DAMN!!! I have been complaining about how Global Warming has been giving us lame Winters the last 10 years or so, but this Winter made up for the last 10 slow Winters. We had 4 major snow storms that forced me to drive on slippery, snow covered roads. All together, I would estimate that we had about 100 inches of snow all Winter. But wait, I left out the biggest one that I wasn't here for.

Melissa and I planned to drive down to see Braad in Virginia Beach on Feb. 15, 2003 to spend the President's day weekend with him. Melissa's friend, Darlene drove down with us. Melissa and Darlene went in their car and I drove with Missy in my car. Talk about two different driving styles! They liked to go 150MPH on the highway and 30MPH in the traffic, and I prefer to drive within the realm of the speed limit the whole time, so we nearly tied.

We stayed the first night in Philly with Mom and Dad, had breakfast in the morning, and headed to Virginia Beach. Snow was the talk on everyone's lips. I really thought it wouldn't be so bad driving through some snow. It was cool as we drove south my car, which had been covered with ice formations for months, slowly thawed. It was really cool to watch chunks of ice fly off my Jetta as I drove down Route 13. It reminded me of a Space Shuttle launch.

It was Darlene's first trip across the unique Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, and I missed her reaction, but Melissa told me she was trying to freak Darlene out like "Is that water I see leaking" while driving through the tunnel that is magically in between two long bridge sections in the middle of a huge body of water. I still can't figure out how they did that.

We went to Braad's bar, Hoopla's on Saturday night, and as usual I drank way too much beer. We ended up playing pool, and they pretty much kicked us out at only 1:30am, which kind of surprised me since the last time they didn't even announce last call until 2:00am. Anyway, we walked the grueling 2 minutes back to Braad's apartment past the hilarious 7 ½ MPH speed limit sign and stayed up for a while longer.

I had the worst headache of my life the next day. The tons of Hoopla's beer just doesn't settle well in my system. I had one of those thumping, heartbeat in your head headaches. I woke up before anyone else at about 9:00am, and I searched high and low for aspirin in Braad's apartment. I couldn't find any, so I walked in the rain to the 7-Eleven, got aspirin and a big bottle of water. Back at the apartment I went back to sleep trying to ditch the headache. I finally got up at about 1:00pm, threw up, and eventually starting losing the headache.

After everyone sobered up, we went to Captain George's and ate way too much, and I think we ate again that night. Sunday we rented movies and stayed in, in the rain. It had been raining all weekend. In the meantime, north of us the rain was snow. Lots of snow. Just north of us in Virginia, Delaware, Philadelphia, everyone was reporting record snowfalls of 25" and 30". The storm was heading north up to the Massachusetts area, so I was already planning on canceling plans of driving home on Monday, which was the original plan. Sure enough, the blizzard of 2003 was making it's way into Mas on Monday morning. Delaware had issued a warning to motorists not to drive on the streets threatening to arrest violators, and Interstates were closed up and down the East coast. I called Roger to let him know I would be staying an extra day and he laughed at me saying "Oh, it's Mister go on vacation in the blizzard of 2003".

That was kind of cool having an extra day to spend with Braad, but we had to drive through the carnage of the storm the next day. Tuesday, it was still raining in Virginia Beach, and we headed back.

Snow drifts on the sides of the road were about 6 - 8 feet high all the way back. While the Interstates weren't too bad to drive on, every now and then the drifts of snow outlining the lanes would slowly begin to creep into your lane. This usually happened when you were trying to pass a big truck effectively turning a two lane highway into a one lane highway. So, making a pass on a car was kind of a gamble. I saw a car laying on it's roof on the side of the Interstate in Delaware on top of the snow drifts, which kind of made me think it was a stranded car on the side of the road that a snow plow had launched. I bet the plow driving was like "Cooool" as he watched the car launch on top of the snow drift.

On the New Jersey turnpike people were driving like idiots as usual. I saw two SUVs flipped over and laying on their roofs. Walking Missy at rest stops were a challenge because there was no grass, and the snow was so deep it would have swallowed her. So, I walked her on the roads and said "This is as good as it gets, so you better go." Not accustomed to peeing in the road, Missy finally gave up.

We got back home to find Melissa's Neon was hit by a drunk driver and towed due to the snow emergency; not a very good welcome home. But, we finally made it back. The roads improved as we went north, and I was feeling pretty home free until I got to our driveway. Huge piles of snow kept me up too late on Sunday shoveling just enough to fit Melissa and Is cars. For the record, Boston recorded 27 inches of snow, which is a record snowfall in a 24 hour period. Nice time to take a trip!