January 25, 2005

Do Not Try This at Home

J. and I decided to leave Pittsburgh Saturday morning, with the hopes of beating the snow across Maryland and making it home before anything major started to fall. It turns out we didn't make it. We didn't leave early enough so by the time we did leave the snow had already started to fall. We developed a false sense of security when we got to Morgantown and it was only raining, but then when we began to go up into the mountains the fun began.

The rain changed to snow as we went up, and when we got into Garrett County, MD, the conditions were terrible. Between the snow and wind, we couldn't see five feet in front of us. The wipers kept getting coated with ice and were actually making it harder to see. We pulled off twice to clear the windshield, and we tried to pull over a third time to get into a rest area. However, the rest area was up a hill which hadn't been plowed and we couldn't make it up. We cleared off the windshield again, and slowly backed down to the interstate. To add injury to insult, we skidded sideways at the top of a hill.

Once we made it out of Garrett County, conditions improved. The roads still had snow on them, but the snow had stopped falling from the sky. Overall, it took almost ten hours for what should be a five hour trip. It was also an experience I don't want to have again.

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