Weather & Travel

Well, once again, I am traveling to Michigan for Christmas.

And, once again, we are having a major snowstorm on the Sunday before Christmas.

What is up with this?????

Last year, I was going to leave at 2:00 in the morning on Monday morning to catch my 6:00 am flight.  I have  friend who considers it to be an adventure to drive me to the airport during the night.  But we had a huge snowstorm with, from what I remember, up to 10 inches of snow.  So another couple volunteered to drive me to Boston on Sunday so I could stay at a hotel overnight and take the shuttle to the airport to catch my flight.  We tried to leave early but it wasn’t early enough.  The drive was long, slow and dangerous. Cars were off the road, stuck in the snow in the side of the highway and I-95 was snow packed.

I was very grateful to my friends for driving me and INCREDIBLY grateful when I found out that, after they dropped me off at the hotel, they got stuck in the snow on the way back.  They had made it back to Maine but, shortly after that, their car skidded to the side of the road and they landed in a snowbank.  They were there for over an hour waiting for help to come get them out.  Very dangerous and scary since it was on the left side of the highway.  They could have gotten creamed by a snowplow or a truck who may not have seen them sitting in the snowbank. Thankfully they were able to get out of the snowbank (with help) and made it home safely.

This year, I decided a head of time to just stay in a hotel overnight in Revere, MA and then take the shuttle over to the airport at around 3:30 in the morning.  And, another friend volunteered to drive me to the hotel.  He and his wife were even going to take me to dinner on the way.  That is, until that HUGE storm formed and started making its way up the coast.  You know, the storm that dumped two feet of snow in the Carolinas, Washingtion, Philadelphia, etc.  Once again, Mother Nature was attempting to spoil my travel plans.

So we changed our plans and decided to leave earlier, skip the dinner plans, and he would drop me off at the bus station in Portsmouth. The bus would take me to Logan, the hotel shuttle would pick me up and take me to the hotel, and then I would take the shuttle back in the morning.

Luckily, the storm wasn’t as bad in Maine and New Hampshire as it was farther south.  We had a pretty uneventful trip although there were at least a half dozen cars off the road. One SUV slid off the road into the woods and got wedged between two trees..facing the highway (that guy must have been really speeding!).  We made it to the bus station on time and safely.

Two years in a row is just a coincidence.  I mean, I can’t be blamed because I schedule travel plans on the Sunday before Christmas two years in a row and we have a major snowstorm on the east coast on the same Sunday, can I?  It’s just a coincidence.  Really.

Then again, if it happens again next year, I’m going to start to wonder.