Snoad Trip 2010
Internet, let me tell you about the harrowing, eight and a half hour journey I just completed. I will call it SNOAD TRIP.
You may remember that whole thing where snow was coming so I had to cut my family time short and I cried almost constantly between six thirty pm and two thirty am, stopping only for a couple hours that I spent gossiping with my aunts. Anyway, brilligspoons was in a similar predicament, so I offered to drive her back with me. We left around eleven am, when the slightest flurries were starting to fall on New Jersey. The plan was to beat the snow to Boston.
THAT WAS THE PLAN, OKAY? THERE WAS A MEETING AND EVERYTHING. APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE ::COUGHHARTFORDCOUGH:: DIDN'T WANT TO FOLLOW IT.
There was a crazy back up on 684 for no reason that we can see. Traffic on 84 itself was fine, but 684 was backed up for about two and a half miles at a near stand-still before the 84 exit. Oh my god, it was insane. Then Connecticut was where it all fell apart. There kept being random, pointless traffic that was letting the snow get ahead of us. I kept pushing to beat it, or at least get to Massachusetts. mcwonthelottery had tweeted that they were pre-treating the roads in MA, so in my head, it became some sort of blizzard Utopia. "I just need to get to MA, then everything will be fine!"
As the snow started to get to us, I admitted to Margaret that we might need a contingency plan.
brilligspoons: "Well, Friendly's is open."
pocky_slash: "Good, we can live there."
I told her my secret fear, that just like in every zombie/dystopian novel in the world, I would keep pushing myself to get to MA because everything would be better there, only to discover that it's all a lie.
pocky_slash: "We'll get there and there will just be piles of cars run off the road, dead bodies strewn about, snow everywhere... the entire state of Massachusetts covered in six feet of snow, right up to the state lines. It's total martial law. We finally get up to the mansion and Chris Eccleston is there acting all crazy..."
brilligspoons: "THERE IS NO CURE FOR THE BLIZZARD!"
We passed some more potential homes right ouside of Hartford:
pocky_slash: "Spaghetti warehouse?! Can we live there?"
brilligspoons: "Yes, and it's right next to the Brewhouse!"
I explained to Margaret, very calmly, that she needed to start watching the cars around us and pick out the one that we would run off the road and overpower when we became trapped on the highway. I told her to pick a big one, so there was lots of room to hollow out the bodies so we could crawl inside. She picked an Escalade. As if sensing the target on their backs, the Escalade tried to escape us.
pocky_slash: "You think switching lanes is going to save your souls!"
As we got closer to Massachusetts, the storm got worse.
pocky-slash: "Keep your eyes open for Chris Eccleston. He only wants us to breed."
brilligspoons: "THERE'S NO CURE FOR THE BLIZZARD."
Then it started to get harrowing when we got on the MassPike. We pulled off at a rest stop to pee and grab some food to go and get gas. It took over thirty minutes. The entire thing was a mess--there was a huge line for food but no one taking orders, it was nearly impossible to get to a gas pump... insane. When we pulled back onto the MassPike, people were crawling by at about six miles an hour and we were still over fifty miles from home.
It got worse the farther we went. I became obsessed with finding the "tracks" in the snow, the lines of asphalt visible where cars had been driving. We didn't get over twenty-five miles an hour and the tracks got harder and harder to find. It got worse as merges came and went. With no way to see the lines on the road, no one knew where to go or what to do. People started making shit up. We didn't even know how many lanes there were half the time.
The last leg of the trip was actually much better. I finally pulled off to pee again after going about as long as I could manage, and when we got back onto the highway, the plows had just come by. The roads were by no means clear, but there were more cars around, so it was brighter and a bit easier going. By the time we went through the toll at Newton, the roads were almost completely clear, right up until exit seventeen. It was INSANE. We managed to get to Margaret's pretty quickly after that. I had long ago decided I would rather spend the night at her place than go back to my empty apartment where I would undoubtedly drink the handle of vodka my parents gave me for Christmas and cry.
So now we are here! We're inside, drinking spiked cocoa, and I think dvds and fic writing are in our future! We somehow survived (I honestly was concerned at a few points and there was one moment where I outright said, "I'm getting off at the next exit and finding us a hotel." I ended up not doing that, obvs, if only because we were in the middle of fucking nowhere and I didn't think we'd be able to FIND a hotel.).
I hope your night was a little less tense, internet!
You may remember that whole thing where snow was coming so I had to cut my family time short and I cried almost constantly between six thirty pm and two thirty am, stopping only for a couple hours that I spent gossiping with my aunts. Anyway, brilligspoons was in a similar predicament, so I offered to drive her back with me. We left around eleven am, when the slightest flurries were starting to fall on New Jersey. The plan was to beat the snow to Boston.
THAT WAS THE PLAN, OKAY? THERE WAS A MEETING AND EVERYTHING. APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE ::COUGHHARTFORDCOUGH:: DIDN'T WANT TO FOLLOW IT.
There was a crazy back up on 684 for no reason that we can see. Traffic on 84 itself was fine, but 684 was backed up for about two and a half miles at a near stand-still before the 84 exit. Oh my god, it was insane. Then Connecticut was where it all fell apart. There kept being random, pointless traffic that was letting the snow get ahead of us. I kept pushing to beat it, or at least get to Massachusetts. mcwonthelottery had tweeted that they were pre-treating the roads in MA, so in my head, it became some sort of blizzard Utopia. "I just need to get to MA, then everything will be fine!"
As the snow started to get to us, I admitted to Margaret that we might need a contingency plan.
brilligspoons: "Well, Friendly's is open."
pocky_slash: "Good, we can live there."
I told her my secret fear, that just like in every zombie/dystopian novel in the world, I would keep pushing myself to get to MA because everything would be better there, only to discover that it's all a lie.
pocky_slash: "We'll get there and there will just be piles of cars run off the road, dead bodies strewn about, snow everywhere... the entire state of Massachusetts covered in six feet of snow, right up to the state lines. It's total martial law. We finally get up to the mansion and Chris Eccleston is there acting all crazy..."
brilligspoons: "THERE IS NO CURE FOR THE BLIZZARD!"
We passed some more potential homes right ouside of Hartford:
pocky_slash: "Spaghetti warehouse?! Can we live there?"
brilligspoons: "Yes, and it's right next to the Brewhouse!"
I explained to Margaret, very calmly, that she needed to start watching the cars around us and pick out the one that we would run off the road and overpower when we became trapped on the highway. I told her to pick a big one, so there was lots of room to hollow out the bodies so we could crawl inside. She picked an Escalade. As if sensing the target on their backs, the Escalade tried to escape us.
pocky_slash: "You think switching lanes is going to save your souls!"
As we got closer to Massachusetts, the storm got worse.
pocky-slash: "Keep your eyes open for Chris Eccleston. He only wants us to breed."
brilligspoons: "THERE'S NO CURE FOR THE BLIZZARD."
Then it started to get harrowing when we got on the MassPike. We pulled off at a rest stop to pee and grab some food to go and get gas. It took over thirty minutes. The entire thing was a mess--there was a huge line for food but no one taking orders, it was nearly impossible to get to a gas pump... insane. When we pulled back onto the MassPike, people were crawling by at about six miles an hour and we were still over fifty miles from home.
It got worse the farther we went. I became obsessed with finding the "tracks" in the snow, the lines of asphalt visible where cars had been driving. We didn't get over twenty-five miles an hour and the tracks got harder and harder to find. It got worse as merges came and went. With no way to see the lines on the road, no one knew where to go or what to do. People started making shit up. We didn't even know how many lanes there were half the time.
The last leg of the trip was actually much better. I finally pulled off to pee again after going about as long as I could manage, and when we got back onto the highway, the plows had just come by. The roads were by no means clear, but there were more cars around, so it was brighter and a bit easier going. By the time we went through the toll at Newton, the roads were almost completely clear, right up until exit seventeen. It was INSANE. We managed to get to Margaret's pretty quickly after that. I had long ago decided I would rather spend the night at her place than go back to my empty apartment where I would undoubtedly drink the handle of vodka my parents gave me for Christmas and cry.
So now we are here! We're inside, drinking spiked cocoa, and I think dvds and fic writing are in our future! We somehow survived (I honestly was concerned at a few points and there was one moment where I outright said, "I'm getting off at the next exit and finding us a hotel." I ended up not doing that, obvs, if only because we were in the middle of fucking nowhere and I didn't think we'd be able to FIND a hotel.).
I hope your night was a little less tense, internet!