Friday night of the first huge storm in December I decided I was going to try and beat the storm and make it to a wedding in Charlottesville. The girl getting married, Kathryn, is a daughter of another judge on the tax court. We've known their family since 1983 and Kathryn and I are the same age and have seen each other periodically throughout the years. I was going to be our family's representative (since my parents are abroad) at the wedding.
I started driving at around 9 pm that night. Hunter and I had both been at a standstill not knowing the best course of action. Finally we both decided (independently) we weren't going to sit around and let the storm get the best of us. We spoke on the phone just after 9 and realized we were both on the road. He was headed to Minnesota to spend the week and Christmas with Carter's family. Hunter was trying to beat the storm as he drove Northwest. I think I ended up driving right into the storm. It was not fun and definitely scary. I was white knuckled the whole way as I drove down there. I really should've turned around, but just after driving for an hour, I already felt I had infested too much and was going to push forward -- not a wise choice. I saw car after car that had either stopped or slid and then couldn't get going again. I know several people died on this road going south that night. They froze in their cars, I guess.
I somehow found and made it to the hotel in Charlottesville and pulled in at 2 am. I probably should've left my car just anywhere in the adjoining lots, but I was driving around trying to figure out where the hotel was and when I found it, I just pulled it around back and stopped. I ended up being pretty blocked in, but I probably would've been blocked in and unable to move no matter where I was parked in the area. Nobody came to plow for days. The most horrible part of this account is that I didn't even get to the wedding. Saturday morning I had no idea if the wedding was even happening. I didn't have contact phone numbers for anybody. I even sent a message to Kathryn on Facebook (we weren't even friends at this point) telling her I was here and asking if the wedding was happening. She couldn't believe I had come (I couldn't either) and let me know the wedding was happening at 5 pm instead of at 11 am and that the location had changed to the Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville rather than the chapel on UVA campus, which is on this tiny street at the top of a hill. So I finally had the information I needed, I just didn't know how to get there. It just was an impossibility. Had I figured out what was going on, I maybe could've called a cab, but I heard the cab wait was 4 hours. The snow had stopped at this point (it had stopped at about 9 am that morning, I think), but digging my car out just wasn't going to happen. I was persuaded to call Kathryn's father too (like at 3 pm in the afternoon). Can you imagine calling the father of the bride right before his daughter's about to get married to ask if he knew of anyone who could give me a ride? There wasn't, which I knew. I just was letting him know I'd come. No one could make it -- only the closest family members were there.
It was a pretty horrible 48 hours -- I even cried and was mad I'd made such an effort to come. At the same time being stuck in a Holiday Inn with absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go and no control over your life is kind of a freeing experience. I think many people felt the same way -- that it's amazing how the control we have over our lives is so easily taken away. I read, did some grading, did yoga, ate at the Applebee's next door, and bonded with others stranded with me. I ended up being able to dig out Sunday morning and headed back to D.C.
Here are pictures to document it all...
The craziest part of this past winter is that the December 19th storm was not the only massive one. We also had the even bigger (I think) one in February. School was cancelled for over a week.
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