The dogs and I took a daily walk around the perimeter of the yard and Dan filled his days tinkering with snowmobiles and plows for his truck. Winter in the country would be a fun time for our family.
The second snowfall came with a bit more of a bite. It began about 3pm and quickly accumulated. By 5:00 that evening, a Saturday, Dan and I were able to pull out the snowmobiles. I had never driven a snowmobile myself so I did a few tentative turns around the yard before we headed off for town. Dan had briefed me on the basics of operating a four wheeler and I did pretty okay for a first timer. We took a quick trip to the local bar for a burger and beer and then stopped at Pete and Lisa's.
Sometime during the night, the peaceful snowfall took a vicious turn. To borrow a line from Dorothy, "the wind began to switch, the house to pitch and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch." Throughout the night the wind howled outside. I'm not sure that howled even begins to describe the sounds outside our house that night. The rattling of windows couple with the moaning of the wind kept us awake most of the night. At some point I had drifted off to an unsettled sleep only to be awoken by a deafening "pop" as with wind filled the plastic wrap over the windows beyond capacity.
Morning light revealed that it had not only snowed outside, but inside as well. The force of the wind had pushed snow between the window sill, through the mini-blinds, and was caught by what plastic remained on the window. Ahh...the joys of an older home.
Given that this storm came up so suddenly that we had only 72 hours notice, Dan and I had no groceries in the house and decided to head to town to stock up. Rather than go to the little store just 5 miles away, we opted to go to Rockford for lunch and then do our grocery shopping. As we left Centerville, the wind continued to blow across the open fields and drifts had begun to accumulate on East/West roads such as ours.
Three hours later when we returned from Rockford, the wind was whipping the light snow into sugary clouds that could not be seen through. We wisely stayed on the main highway until the last possible moment before turning onto our road as near to the house as possible. As we turned onto Centerville, we were amazed to see the first 200 feet or so clear. As we approached the 150 foot mark though, another powerful gust of wind kicked up enough snow that we could not see even the front of our car. We continued moving forward slowly, but not for very long. WHAM! We slammed into some unseen, unmoving object. When the snow settled we saw what we had hit...more snow. We were face first into a snow drift that was as tall as the hood of my Buick Rainer.
Dan's persistence paid off and within about 15 minutes we were freed from our snowbank and free to explore alternate ways home. Our first attempt was to go back down the main road to the west and find a north/south road to take us back to Centerville from another direction. It was a nice try, but we quickly learned that there was a 10 car pile up on the main road. A quick U-turn and we passed our road and headed north to try to make it back from that direction.
As we turned onto the road immediately north of ours we saw a little tiny drift. Gun shy from our first attempt at getting home, Dan asked if I thought he could make it. Seeing it was just a teeny tiny baby drift, I encouraged him to try it. You can do it, I laughed. And he did. He gunned it, blew through the baby drift and plowed right into the larger drift waiting on the other side. After cussing at me for a few minutes, Dan tried the forward and backward trick that had worked so well on Centerville. It worked, almost. Had the darn car just kept a straight path as it moved in reverse we woulda been out without a problem, but it didn't. The back end of the car fish tailed to the left and swung into the ditch. This time it was obvious that we weren't going to be able to inch our one out of this.
Dan and I had two different thoughts on how to proceed from here. My first instinct was to walk home. I had all the necessary winter gear and was prepared for the hike. Dan, on the other hand, wanted to go sit in the bar until we could get the car out and the road cleared. Not knowing when the roads would get cleared, I wasn't willing to sit and wait, I had things to do.
Dan had called a friend and gotten us a ride back into town. Tired of waiting for her to arrive, we gathered a few things from the car that we needed. I had the foresight to stick my ID in my pocket so the authorities would be able to identify my frozen carcass later and my ski poles which were still in the back seat from our move. We began walking towards town and our approaching ride.
As we got in our friend's minivan, Dan and I continued arguing about the wisdom in walking home. My stubborn streak had set in and there was no stopping me at this point. The minivan pulled onto the 100 clear feet of Centerville Road and dropped me off.
Grabbing my ski poles for extra support I jumped out of the car and started my little trek for home. It was about a 1/2 mile from the point where I was dropped of to our driveway. From that point, I could not see the house due to the swirling snow. What I did see, just ahead of me, was a farmer digging his truck out of the same drift we had been entangled in earlier. "Is this a typical winter out here?" I asked him as I approached the truck. "Nope. This is a first for me he answered." Not wanting to lose my momentum, I kept walking as we chatted. "You kinda look like you're enjoying this," he said. "Yes. In some perverse way I am." I smiled to myself as I continued.
As I continued trudging through the snow that was, in some places, nearly waist deep I was reminded of my ice climbing trip to Canada several years ago. The weather that weekend was only slightly worse than it was this day. I paused to survey the scene around me...what there was that I could see through the snow. A feeling of contentment fill me and warmed me from the subzero wind chills of the day. Within a few more minutes I was home.
Five hours later Dan tumbled through the door. He had seen to getting our car out of the ditch and waited around at a friend's house hoping that the road would be cleared. When that failed to happen, he had driven to the end of our road, parked the car and walked home.
We still had the issue of moving our car to a safe location out of plow's way. Snowmobile to the rescue! Dan and I cuddled up on one of our sleds and headed straight down the middle of Centerville Road. The drifts bounced us around, and I swear we even got air at one point, but we made it to the car without incident. I jumped in the car while Dan took of across the field to meet me at Pete and Lisa's.
We unloaded the groceries that had gotten us into this mess in the first place into Lisa's house and we were off again. Neither Dan nor I are small people, and the snowmobile wasn't really meant for two people. Our ride home was only about a mile, but I swore I was going to die. I felt like my butt was dragging off the back end through the cornfield. Once we hit Centerville Road I breathed a sigh of relief. We'd been through here once safely a second time should be no problem.
Prayer had delivered me safely across the cornfield when I'd been scared to death. Somewhere in there I had said, "Lord, If this thing has to spill, please make it a soft landing." It wasn't long before that prayer was answered. The same snowdrift that had swallowed our car earlier in the day ate the snowmobile. It sank about three feet into the snow. Dan dug it out once more and we were on our way. As we approached our driveway, I heard a muffled shout from Dan. "What?" I screamed to be heard above the noise of the machine and the wind. About that time, I felt myself go airborne and land with a thud in the snow. "Why didn't you lean?" Dan screamed. We brushed ourselves off and finished our short drive home.
The first snow plow didn't come by until 9AM the next day. Thanks for the three day weekend Boone County.
No comments:
Post a Comment