The snow started at about noon yesterday, contrary to the weather reports saying there wouldn’t be anything falling from the skies until mid afternoon. What started with a few little flakes turned into a lot of little flakes very quickly accumulating at the rate of 2-3 inches an hour. We watched from the pharmacy as the roof of the porn store across the street turned white and the store traffic dwindled to nothing more than people wanting to come in and use our bathroom.

At around 3pm, Angela decided she’d be leaving in 30 minutes. She ended up sticking around for an hour, and I put my coat on at about 4:15pm, calling Eddie to let him know that I’d be leaving shortly. It took me close to 15 minutes to clean off the truck, but I was on the road and on my way by 4:30 or so. The truck is a 4×4, but I didn’t want to risk getting stuck in a drift in a strange neighborhood. I decided that the back roads were just as bad as the highway based on what I could see on the way towards the on-ramp, so I chose the highway under the assumption that they were clear, just clogged full of people, as opposed to the near-empty but snow-filled back streets. I was wrong, so very wrong.

I got stuck at the on-ramp to I-95 behind a man driving a tiny little Mazda that slid all over the place. I gloated behind him, silently thanking my lucky stars that I was in my giant Ford Explorer with its four wheel drive. We both made it down the ramp without problems, aside from the Mazda sliding all over the place. I eventually made it onto the highway without any problems until I tried to switch lanes to go around a trio of cars that had been mired in the snow, and discovered that either my 4-wheel drive isn’t working at all, or is just 3-wheel drive, because the nice guy who gave me a push through the drift pointed out that one of my front wheels wasn’t turning like it was supposed to be doing.

Lovely.

An hour later, I’ve made it to the next exit down the highway and I’m watching the snow build up on the hood of the truck and on the rear window. I put the truck in park and got out and cleaned off the wipers and share my snow brush with a couple of folks who were using their hands to wipe theirs clear. The highway was a parking lot, reminding me of REM’s Everybody Hurts video. And all I could do was sit there and watch my gas gauge slowly go down towards the red line while we made our way down the interstate at a rate of a few feet every couple of minutes or so.

Two hours later, I’m in the middle of a full fledged emotional breakdown. I’m scared, I’m alone, I’m running out of gas, and I’m worried that the truck is going to end up stuck if I try to switch lanes to get further over towards the next exit. I don’t have my cell phone on me because I couldn’t find it when I left the house (it turns out one of the animals had hid it under the couch). I’ve chewed all my nails off. The Mazda’s driver is next to me, stuck in the ridge of snow left by a plow and trying to back up out of is, and asking me if there’s enough room behind him. I open my window and tell him he’s got about a car-length between his trunk and the guy behind him, and the people in the car in front of me get out and give him a push. Some space opens up and a pocket of empty road can be seen, and I follow in the tire treads of the guys in front of me and make my way to the next exit to get some gas. It takes about 45 minutes, but I get to the gas station on fumes, getting stuck in the parking lot trying to turn around and get beside a pump. The gas costs me a fortune to fill the tank, but it was the best $56 dollars I’ve ever spent. After cleaning off the truck and sharing the snow brush again, I’m back on the road and again debating whether or not to get on the highway or attempt to take the side streets out of Providence to Warwick.

This debate is quickly answered when I get stuck at a stop light. The light changed 3 times before I was able to get enough of a grip on the street to rocket through the turn, but the rest of the drive wasn’t as bad. No longer fearing that I was going to run out of gas, I was able to relax a bit. The highway wasn’t as bad as I got closer to downtown, and once I got past the Big Blue Bug I was able to get up to 30mph a few times, and it took me about another hour or so to get home. Eddie cooked dinner and made me a hot bath and some cocoa as promised.

Today, I’m home. The last thing I wanted to do today was drive anywhere, so I’m hanging out in jammies and going to crochet for the afternoon.

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