Blizzard

The weeks passed and we settled into a routine where Alex would fly home one weekend and then I would fly home the next. Twice a month. The flights were fun and we had 4 days at home. Warm and sunny Southern California. Then it was back to the reality of ice and snow in New England.

One weekend, while Alex was away, a Nor’easter blew in; a real blizzard! It started Friday night and snowed all day Saturday and Sunday. I sat in our little hotel room and watched in amazement as the snow fell; higher and higher. I had plenty of food in our kitchenette and the power stayed on. Alas, the phone went out. Not a bad thing really, as the phone was outside and attached to a pole supporting the overhang. And to use the phone, you had to walk to the manager’s house and ask them to connect the phone to an outside line. Then walk back…through the snow.

Monday morning came and I was up early to dig out my car and get on the road. So I dug and I dug, piling up great mounds of snow on each side of the car. It was shortly after I finished that I realized that I hadn’t heard any snowplows coming down our road. In fact it was silent, very silent…except for my hard breathing! Well, I had a car that I could now sit in but without a road to drive it on. I raced back into the room and began calling our workers houses, to let them know that I would be late. The first one I talked to had to laugh, uproariously. Did I really believe that people were going to work today? Well, I did believe that, but I was wrong.

Now I had a day off and nowhere to go. So I decided to walk to the corner store and use the payphone to let Alex know about my predicament. I started off and immediately ran into a problem. The snow had drifted higher as I got closer to the road and pretty soon I was looking at ten to twelve foot high drifts of powder snow. I struggled on, finding my way slowly. It was a beautiful sunny day and the blue sky and white snow made the struggle less painful. After about an hour, I had made it to the corner gas station, probably a quarter mile distant from our room. I spotted the top of the telephone booth and climbed a steep hill of snow to get to it. Luckily the door was still open and the booth was sitting a well of snow, so I slid down into it.

The phone even worked and I was soon telling Alex of my adventures. And describing my current location; a phone booth in an ocean of snow.