Nov 22 2008
Finally
I really did get started at 4:30 am. There were a few snowflakes in the air, but it didn’t concern me because it had been spitting snow all week. I got over Skytop, but when I was about halfway to Port Matilda to pick up I-99, the snow started coming down more heavily.
I should have turned around and come back. But I didn’t.
I didn’t realize conditions were bad until I got on I-99 at Port Matilda. You know those BRIDGE MAY BE ICY signs? When I got to the first one, I could feel the car slide on the ice. But I saw the snow plows on I-99N, and figured they’d clear the highway and it would be fine.
And I was somewhat right. I-99 was clear enough to drive on from Bald Eagle to Altoona.
Those of you from less snowy climes will wonder why I didn’t turn back, and it’s a valid question. I didn’t turn back because Pennsylvania has spoiled me. They don’t just dump salt on the roads. They plow them. Even with inches of snow on the ground, they keep the roads clear.
Well, when they can. And while the snowfall was heavier, it wasn’t awful. Visibility at night — remember, it was pitch black — was pretty bad, but I figured it would let up, and I could make up time when it got light.
When I give people directions, I tell them to take 465 around Indy and pick up I-70, take it all the way through Ohio, then continue when it becomes the Pennsylvania Turnpike at New Stanton, until they get to I-99 at Bedford, and take it north. It’s neither the most direct nor the best route. The Turnpike is narrow, full of hairpin curves, and many of them on the sides of mountains (7% grade, trucks use lower gears, runaway truck ramp). It also goes southeast, and we live northeast of New Stanton, so you lose an hour, hour-and-a-half, but it is the easiest route. Instead, was going to take the more direct route, pick up US-22 just south of Altoona, which goes southwest, then hit I-70. US-22 is a better road (much of it is brand new), and while there’s no way to avoid driving up and down mountains because you’re driving across all of those ridges, it’s wider than the Turnpike, and it isn’t full of hairpin curves.
As soon as I got on 22, the snow started to fall faster. Still, the first ten or fifteen miles weren’t too bad. But then, buckets of snow started coming down — it was still dark — and I was coming down one of those mountain roads.
There was so much snow I couldn’t tell where the road was, and that’s a problem when the side of the road falls off into nothing. There was an exit just ahead, and I took it.
I crawled to the little town, and found one store there, Jim’s Grocery, Deli, and Ammo, or something like that. I went in, talked to the guy working there, who said they had to clear 22 because people had to get to work, and I asked him if I could sit in the parking lot until it got light.
I had driven pretty slowly in the mess, the last ten miles or so probably no faster than 20 mph, and it was about an hour-and-a-half until dawn. So I had already lost a lot of time.
I got back on 22 and found that while I could now see, the road was nearly impassable. The snow was falling lightly, but the road hadn’t been plowed from what I could tell, and cars were sliding around. I drove very slowly until the snow again started coming down in buckets. I pulled off at the nearest exit to wait it out. Suffice it to say that I did this about six times, because the snow was falling faster than they could clear the road.
By this time, I had lost hours.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t turn back, well, it would have been just as bad going back, possibly worse. I was in Cambria County (the heart of Murtha’s district), and I figured the closer I was to Pittsburgh, the more likely the road would be cleared. After the sixth stop, though, when I got back on the road, every time I thought about pulling over at an exit, I forced myself to continue, at the fastest, 35 mph and often 15 or 20, because anything more would have been suicide. Texans or Californians would have slit their wrists.
The road was clearer in Indiana County, although the snow was still coming down fairly quickly, and the road was slippery. It gradually got better as I neared the easternmost Pittsburgh bedroom communities (I was right), and it was obvious that the snow had barely fallen there.
I couldn’t really make up much lost time, though, because now, I was driving through the Pittsburgh exurbs.
Let’s take a moment to review. My fear when I started was that I would hit the Pittsburgh area just at rush hour, and lose time. That didn’t happen. Rush hour was long over. I had no idea what time it was. I didn’t want to know.
I got on the Turnpike to head south to pick up I-70 and did a stupid thing, and realized I had done it immediately. Instead of following the turnpike right to Harrisburg, I followed it left to Ohio, and ended up going north. Being the turnpike, the first exit was nine miles, so I got off there, did a U-Turn, got back on, and finally got to New Stanton and I-70.
The road was fine, but almost as soon as I got on I-70, it started to snow (not heavily), and in the mountains, that means serious visibility problems (cloud cover). So I couldn’t drive very fast — nobody could — and pulled over at the West Virginia welcome center a couple of hours later, just across the state line.
That was the first time I dared look at the clock. It was 12:30. I had left at 4:30. I should have been there four hours earlier — at the latest.
Visibility was still an issue until I got out of the Ohio Valley (that’s the area surrounding Wheeling), into Ohio, and suddenly, not only was there no snow to be seen anywhere, but only a few fluffy clouds and bright sun.
I was still pretty spooked, so it took me another hour or so before I hit 70 mph, but except for Columbus, where traffic was heavy, and to a lesser extent, Dayton, I flew across Ohio, over the state line, and everything was great until the traffic suddenly stopped on 465 (for those of you who don’t know, 465 is the highway that circles Indianapolis). For thirty minutes, traffic barely moved (it was dusk), and it turned out everybody was trying to get off onto I-65, because once we got to the I-65 exit, traffic started zooming again, and cars were backed up trying to get onto the exit.
Just four miles was my exit, 37S. By the time I got onto 37, it was dark. I drove the remaining 45 miles, and got to Bloomington at 7 pm.
So it took me 14 1/2 hours to drive 560 miles. It was the worst trip I’ve ever made. I never want to drive again. Anywhere. Ever.
I’m not going to do this again. I’ll check accuweather Tuesday night. If there’s any snow predicted at all, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I won’t be driving back to Pennsylvania. No. Frigging. Way.
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