How I almost became a popsicle.
Here I am in beautiful Essex Vermont for a writing conference!
Here's my adorable room:
I got here early in the day, things don't kick off until 5PM or so, and I decided to go meet my good friend Dave for lunch. It was a $20 cab ride, though well worth it to spend an hour chatting with one of the best people in the world. I decided that, since it was a beautiful sunny day, that I would just navigate the bus system back to the Inn to save some money.
Have you ever been to Vermont?
If the answer is no, let me tell you something. The weather can be sunny, you can sneeze, and by the time you open your eyes there will be a blizzard that is more blizzardy than the blizzard in Little House on Prairie.
That's exactly what happened to me. One minute I'm happily riding the bus, "Oh look, it's St. Michael's college!" and "Oh look, what a cute Amtrak station, this is where I transfer to the other bus" to.... "Oh my God."
The "Oh My God" was because the bus driver had dropped me off at this cute little outlet mall/movie theater (weird, only in Vermont can an outlet mall be cute). He said that the Inn was just down the road an across the street. But that was before the BLIZZARD OF 2010.
Seriously, it's like he drove away and the sky opened up and then I was walking down the side of a road in a white-out. Could not see ten feet in front of me. Could not see where I was going, or where I'd been. How long had I been walking? Days? Weeks? Seven minutes? Would I have to eat my wool clogs to survive? Is wool even edible? Why do I think it's edible. Must google, if I make it. Would i need to fashion some sort of snow shelter, and create fire using the wool clog I don't eat? Are they edible AND flammable? Does the guy that does that wild man survival show know about clogs? They could save his life!
Obviously, hypothermia had set into my brain.
Here, this is what I looked like (and yes, I would be the person found with silly self-portraits on an iphone frozen to my hand)
My hat does not have ear-flaps. That's actually snow frozen to the side of my face.
This will not be a surprise to people who have been in a car with me. I am the person that would be found frozen in a snow drift, ten feet away from a coffee house. Also, it will not be a surprise to those who have seen the scar on my leg from the Adrienne vs. Automobile incident of 1995 that I do not well in situations where cars may skid out of control and kill me dead.
Somehow (by walking 200 yards) I made it to a little movie theater and blustered into the lobby, stamping snow off my feet, steaming up my glasses, and basically acting like I had just tunneled through the snow from Canada.
This was amusing to the nice gentleman and his adult son who were standing in the lobby, talking about the surprise snow storm.
Now, if my mom and dad are reading, I ask them to please stop.
Because what happened next could have ended up the sort of cautionary tale that, well, you'll see.
I sputtered out something through frozen lips that sounded something like "My friend David Bus So Cold Got Lost Inn at Essex The Snow Dear God The Snow!"
They gave me a ride. They'd just seen The Tooth Fairy and recomended it highly.
To make me feel better, the dad assured me that this was too much of a freak blizzard for me to walk ten minutes in, and he never would have forgiven himself if he read in the paper that I'd been found frozen by the front door to the lobby, just feet away from sweet safety.
Of course, by the time we pulled into the Inn, the snow had cleared, everything seemed much less dire, and the feeling was working its way back into my frozen face.
And now here I am, recovering from my ordeal:
The conference hasn't even started yet, and I'm ready for a nap.
I love Vermont, even with its crazy weather. And I really, really love Vermonters.
xoxo
AMV
Here's my adorable room:
I got here early in the day, things don't kick off until 5PM or so, and I decided to go meet my good friend Dave for lunch. It was a $20 cab ride, though well worth it to spend an hour chatting with one of the best people in the world. I decided that, since it was a beautiful sunny day, that I would just navigate the bus system back to the Inn to save some money.
Have you ever been to Vermont?
If the answer is no, let me tell you something. The weather can be sunny, you can sneeze, and by the time you open your eyes there will be a blizzard that is more blizzardy than the blizzard in Little House on Prairie.
That's exactly what happened to me. One minute I'm happily riding the bus, "Oh look, it's St. Michael's college!" and "Oh look, what a cute Amtrak station, this is where I transfer to the other bus" to.... "Oh my God."
The "Oh My God" was because the bus driver had dropped me off at this cute little outlet mall/movie theater (weird, only in Vermont can an outlet mall be cute). He said that the Inn was just down the road an across the street. But that was before the BLIZZARD OF 2010.
Seriously, it's like he drove away and the sky opened up and then I was walking down the side of a road in a white-out. Could not see ten feet in front of me. Could not see where I was going, or where I'd been. How long had I been walking? Days? Weeks? Seven minutes? Would I have to eat my wool clogs to survive? Is wool even edible? Why do I think it's edible. Must google, if I make it. Would i need to fashion some sort of snow shelter, and create fire using the wool clog I don't eat? Are they edible AND flammable? Does the guy that does that wild man survival show know about clogs? They could save his life!
Obviously, hypothermia had set into my brain.
Here, this is what I looked like (and yes, I would be the person found with silly self-portraits on an iphone frozen to my hand)
My hat does not have ear-flaps. That's actually snow frozen to the side of my face.
This will not be a surprise to people who have been in a car with me. I am the person that would be found frozen in a snow drift, ten feet away from a coffee house. Also, it will not be a surprise to those who have seen the scar on my leg from the Adrienne vs. Automobile incident of 1995 that I do not well in situations where cars may skid out of control and kill me dead.
Somehow (by walking 200 yards) I made it to a little movie theater and blustered into the lobby, stamping snow off my feet, steaming up my glasses, and basically acting like I had just tunneled through the snow from Canada.
This was amusing to the nice gentleman and his adult son who were standing in the lobby, talking about the surprise snow storm.
Now, if my mom and dad are reading, I ask them to please stop.
Because what happened next could have ended up the sort of cautionary tale that, well, you'll see.
I sputtered out something through frozen lips that sounded something like "My friend David Bus So Cold Got Lost Inn at Essex The Snow Dear God The Snow!"
They gave me a ride. They'd just seen The Tooth Fairy and recomended it highly.
To make me feel better, the dad assured me that this was too much of a freak blizzard for me to walk ten minutes in, and he never would have forgiven himself if he read in the paper that I'd been found frozen by the front door to the lobby, just feet away from sweet safety.
Of course, by the time we pulled into the Inn, the snow had cleared, everything seemed much less dire, and the feeling was working its way back into my frozen face.
And now here I am, recovering from my ordeal:
The conference hasn't even started yet, and I'm ready for a nap.
I love Vermont, even with its crazy weather. And I really, really love Vermonters.
xoxo
AMV