While our weekend in Vermont was fun-filled and relaxing, the trip home was not. A snow storm hit Baltimore, which resulted in quite the adventure for us.
We set off for the three hour drive to the Boston airport in two cars: four people plus snowboarding gear in a van with Kevin and I following in an Elantra. Google pointed us to what should have been the fastest route. But we were quickly thwarted by a closed road. We pulled off to get gas and directions to the airport and elected to head south to the highway instead of trusting to the back roads.
It wasn't long before we reached the highway. And shortly after that we got the message that our flight had been canceled due to snow in Baltimore. We pulled off to get lunch and figure out what to do.
By the time we were looking up flights, the soonest available ones were three days out. None of us could afford to miss that much work, so we decided to try and drive. It's only eight hours from Boston to DC under normal circumstances, and we were sure this plan would get us home sooner and cheaper than attempting to find another flight. Next came a series of phone calls as we attempted to change our car rental reservations to carry out these plans.
The end result was that Jen and Steve drove the van and all the gear back to Boston, where they already had a flight for the following morning. Kevin attempted to find something bigger or better suited to the snow than the Elantra, but we had no luck with the next three Enterprise locations on our route. So Sarah and Zach joined us in the dinky car.
It was as we were attempting to get back on the highway that we realized Vermont didn't want to let us go. The on ramp was under construction and we got sent on a detour through some back roads in pursuit of the next highway on-ramp. We did eventually make it, and we all cheered when we finally crossed into Massachusetts, certain that the journey would be easy-going from then.
In Connecticut, I took over driving from Kevin. The weather had been up to then, and I was still naively confident that we might make it home that night. Then it started snowing, and I was sure we would at least be able to make it past New York City and get an early start the next morning. Then it got worse and worse. Somehow I survived one of the more harrowing driving experiences of my life, going 10 miles an hour and refusing to change lanes. We eventually found a place where I could pull of and let Kevin take over. But we only made it one more mile before we found a hotel and stopped for the night in Yonkers.
The next morning it was almost like the storm had never happened. The weather had warmed up enough that the snow had turned to rain. The roads had been plowed. We waited for the sun to come up fully, to make sure that the parking lot was clear, then hit the road again.
Kevin took the first driving shift and got us through New York and into New Jersey. After a couple of hours we switched so he could take a nap and, once again, I got hit with awful weather. This time it was rain instead of snow, so it wasn't as bad, but visibility was nearly non-existent. It didn't let up until shortly before we got to Baltimore and found our car at the airport.
We eventually made it home about 18 hours after we had planned to, safe and sound and with almost no evidence of the snow that had thrown such a wrench in our plans. Vermont wasn't able to keep us there permanently. And now there's enough distance that I can look back on this trip and see an adventure and a good story, rather than the most stressful drive of my life.
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