Blizzards

Apparently winter is not going down without a fight.  After a few nice days and seeing most of the snow melt away (except up here on Mount Doom...it is funny that I call where I live Mount Doom, since in LOTR that mountain was a volcano...)  Today it started snowing and it did not stop.  We probably have at least six inches up here so far (in thirty minutes, my car was completely covered after getting home) and down in Altoona there was a good 2-4 inches.

It reminded me of the blizzard of '93.  Gather 'round kids, time to hear Grandpa Josh tell ya all about the horrors of that blizzard. 

My dad, pap, brother, and I went to the regional wrestling tournament over at Altoona.  During the day the blizzard struck and the tournament decided to just get the entire thing over with in one straight shot, no breaks.  As soon as it was over we left for Philipsburg. 

The police were out on the highway getting ready to close the interstate.  We were the last vehicle they let go.  My dad had a four-wheel drive truck and we started out at a pretty steady pace.  Pretty soon though, it was a solid white-out.  We probably traveled between five and fifteen miles per hour.  My dad stopped a couple times to pull smaller cars out of ditches.

It was not that the road was just bad, you just could not see anything, so knowing if you were actually on the road was quite a problem.  It took us nearly four hours to get home (it normally takes about 40-45 minutes).  Once home, because of the hill we lived on, my dad could not get the truck up the driveway.  We had to walk up the very steep hill to the house.  There was one small problem, the wind caused the snow to drift, which caused the bottom of the hill to have a snow over four feet high.  My dad had to carry my brother on his back up the hill.

Back then I thought it was so ridiculous that we came home.  Many of our family members had hotel rooms, but my dad and pap did not want to stay.  Now though, I think of it as an adventure and one that I am glad to have been involved.

As I drove home tonight I kept thinking about that drive home and how my dad had to concentrate and use every bit of his driving skill to make it home.  I remembered how many times he would have to stop to clear off his windshield wipers (the snow was coming down at such a rate that even if they were moving, they could not clear it away fast enough...crazy). 

Is there a point to this?  Nah, just reminiscing about the past.