Blizzard 2010 through pictures
Let me start by saying that I think the phrase “Blizzard 2010″ sounds incredibly dramatic. Yes, the east coast and DC region were hit hard by the storms, but after witnessing the storm I have a hard time calling it a blizzard. That being said, driving in the heart of the storm was not….the smartest of ideas. You see, Joe and I had to travel to Pittsburgh last Friday for a funeral in his family and drove back Saturday afternoon. We stayed in a hotel and when we woke up Saturday morning, we were greeted with this:
(This was after a plow had gone through the parking lot about an hour or so beforehand mind you.) After spending the better part of two hours digging the car out, we decided to try to make the trek back home. The snow was still falling quite heavily but even with our front wheel drive Saturn Sedan, Joe was confident that we would be alright to drive in over two feet of snow.
At least there wouldn’t be any traffic.
And we left.
Sure enough there wasn’t any traffic on the turnpike except a few truckers. And for the most part the roads weren’t THAT bad. They weren’t good and I wouldn’t have recommended driving, but Joe did well. (If I were driving we would have ended up in a ditch or off one of those lovely cliffs in the Pennsylvania mountains.)
I should clarify that the roads weren’t bad in Pennsylvania.
But the moment we crossed over the state line into Maryland we were greeted with roads like this:
There were trucks parked on the side of the road and cars that had slid off and been abandoned. Route 70 had become a graveyard for those stupid enough to drive in the weather.
And still we kept going.
Joe loved it. He loved that he was passing 4 wheel drive trucks and SUVs on the roads with ease. He got cocky and starting taunting them (not that they could hear, but he taunted nonetheless).
When we first left PA, we made a deal that if we got on the road we wouldn’t stop. Driving the roads wasn’t bad, especially the interstates, but the town roads? I’d rather not thank you very much. Stopping and starting is not exactly easy in that kind of weather, but eventually we had been on the road for a few hours and well, fatties gotta eat. So we stopped.
Most places were closed, which we expected, except for gas stations. Therefore, on this trip I broke my cardinal traveling rule about eating food from gas stations. I don’t know what it is about people from PA, especially rural PA who think it’s completely acceptable to order a pizza from a gas station. Mostly, I blame Sheetz for that one. Lo and behold, the gas station we stopped at was, duh duh dah! A pizza place. I shied away from the pizza, but I figured, how bad could a sub really be? My stomach was barking at me to eat something substantial so I took a risk and ordered a Philly cheese steak….from a gas station in the middle of nowhere Maryland.
I wish I had taken a picture of this thing. It was gross looking and all over the place, but I didn’t. Why not you ask?
Because it was fucking amazing. It was so good that I didn’t have time to snap a photo. I scarfed it down so quickly my brain didn’t have time to realize the flavor probably came from the fact that is was FROM a gas station. Best philly cheese steak ever. Oh em gee. I wish I had ordered 6 of the damn things.
With food in our bellies we continued our perilous journey southward. To the heart of the storm. To Washington DC.
Slowly we made our way to DC and after a lovely fist waving fight between Joe and a four-toothed man in a plow truck (which he WASN’T using), we were getting close to home. It is here in the story that I will interrupt our travels for my own thought on plow trucks. I understand that there are jurisdictions on who can plow what road. I don’t understand it, but whatever. Yet, when I see MD plow truck drivers, riding along 270, on a cell phone, or texting, and NOT PLOWING, I get angry.
As you can see from the photos above, PA did a pretty damn good job at keeping the roads clear even while it was snowing cats and dogs. MD….well I think they pretty much gave up before they even started. Also, when I see cars stuck on the side of the road, you know mini vans slamming into guard rails and then plow trucks just driving by without care, I get pissed.
If you’re going to call this storm into a blizzard, have the news stations transform it into a dangerous natural disaster then I think those stupid laws about plow truck jurisdictions need to go out the damn window. You have a plow on the front of your truck, AND YOUR STUPID OBNOXIOUS FLASHY LIGHTS ARE ON, then your plow better damn well be hitting pavement.
This didn’t need to be a “blizzard.” The roads didn’t have to be so treacherous that the mail was delayed for a week.
That being said, Joe and I were lucky. Those roads were horrible. It was our stupid fault for driving in the middle of the storm and had we wrecked, I still would have said that. We knew the risks of driving and still we did. We got home without a scratch, without spinning out, and without getting stuck in the snow once.
And now, for an account from someone who loves the snow:
