Deciding to move to New England (USA) during the middle of winter when a blizzard is on it’s way isn’t the brightest of ideas, but when is timing ever perfect? Are we right?
I (Stacey) landed at Boston Logan Airport around 5:30 P.M. just as the sun was setting and rushed out of the airplane to grab my rental car. Normally I would just figure out public transportation, but since we were making a more permanent move we needed a car for the first few weeks while we settled. I started this adventure out on my own as Alex had to finish up some business in Germany. He would be joining me the next week. Sitting in my new rental car with my maps.me GPS in toe I headed out into Boston.
Now for those of you who haven’t been to Boston it’s like a maze, and if you take one wrong turn you have to drive 3 miles before you can even (try to) turn around. Well… I made this mistake about three times in a row before I pulled over with frustration. I felt defeated after no sleep the night before, a 2 hour train ride, 10 hour flight with a stop over, and now I was lost just as Winter Storm Niko started to bless the East Coast with its presence. After taking a few minutes to figure out where I was going I headed back out onto the main street feeling relieved to be on the right track, just to get lost a few more times before finally getting onto the proper tollway.
As I finally made it out of Boston the snow started to pick up. At first it was sweat little droplets, but soon enough they turned into quarter size downpours. It felt like space travel, how quickly it zoomed by the car and smacked onto the windshield with the wipers in extra speedy mode. Definitely not matching the measly 10 M.P.H. speed limit I had enforced (been forced) for myself. The ground quickly filled up with snow, and the lines on the highway could no longer be seen. Everywhere became a white wonderland and if I was driving on grass or gravel I wouldn’t have known.
Just as I came to a near hault and began to work my way to what I thought was the side of the road a huge tractor entered in front of me and began plowing. Slowly a congo line of cars formed behind the tractor and slowly we all continued driving. When the tractor exited the line would slow again for a mile or so until another plower entered, and on we went playing green light-red light, until finally in the distance I reached my final highway stretch leading me to where I would soon call home.
There were a few times I started to lose control and waver back and fourth. I saw more than a few cars that had lost control and ended up in the highway median being helped out by Highway Patrol, and I wanted to do my best not to suffer the same fate.
At long last, after nearly 24 hours of travel and no sleep I made it to my friends house near Portsmouth, New Hampshire at about 11:00 P.M. A supposed 1 hour car ride from Boston ended up being a 5+ hour drive, but in the end it was all worth it as I sat with an old friend sipping hot coco and sharing stories. … that is until we had to shovel our car out, a relatively new experience for this Cali girl.
What’s your blizzard experience?
rockpapertravel 