It was the day after Christmas, and Alexandra and I had a rental car for the day, with nowhere to go until a 7pm Islanders game with friends out on Long Island. We've been talking about going to the IKEA in Brooklyn for a long time now - so we headed down for a day of shopping and Swedish meatballs.
IKEA was a blast - we had some great Swedish food and got some excellent home furnishings (including a big tropical palm tree - which play a role much later in my mini-saga). It was slowing lightly when we left for IKEA, and it seemed to pick up a bit while we rummaged around the store for a few hours - but after packing the car the roads were still in pretty good condition. This is about the time when I found out we were expecting a blizzard.
I decided to go to the Islanders game, as the roads were still drivable, and it took us a little over 2 hours to make the trek from Brooklyn to Uniondale. By the time we got to the stadium, the roads were pretty bleak - but since we were there we decided to enjoy the game and deal with the consequences later. The game was a lot of fun, more for the friends we enjoyed it with. There were only about 3,100 people who came to the game (instead of the 17,000 or so the stadium fits), and over 90% of them were fans who came down from Montreal to root for their Canadiens. The Canadiens put in a lackluster performance, and the Islanders made them pay with a 4-1 victory.
We all said our goodbyes, and left for the long trek home. The snow really fell during the 3 hour game, and we were faced with bleak prospects of getting home in a reasonable amount of time. The winds had actually blown most of the snow off the car, and after 5 minutes of chipping ice we were good to leave the parking lot. I pressed the gas pedal, and was greeted with the sound of spinning tires. Alexandra hopped in the driver's seat and I proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes alternating between digging with the heel of my sneakers and pushing the car. The bus loads of French Canadiens waiting to leave had quite a few laughs at the expense of the silly Americans and their exploits in the snow.
When we got to the exit of the parking lot, I was about to get back into the car when I had the presence of mind to check for my house keys, which were supposed to be in my pocket. They were gone. They must had fallen out while pushing, and now I was about to freak out. I walked a few steps back and with an amazing stroke of luck, they were lying right there in the snow! Buoyed by this incredible stroke of luck, I hopped in the car hoping that the luck would see me home.
We got on the Meadowbrook Parkway heading North, and there was one lane of very light traffic moving along at about 20 mph, and things were looking pretty good. I was fairly sure the LIE would be in similar condition and we could manage back to the city. As we got close to the road, however, we were brought to a dead stop by an accident with all sorts of flashing lights a few hundred feet ahead. the line of cars brought to a stop sat there for about 30 minutes, as the roads proceeded to get really bad since there was nobody driving on them...many people started backing up to the exit we just passed to divert around the accident, and eventually we had no other choice than to follow them.
I got to the top of the on ramp, and made a left. We proceeded to drive up the road a few hundred feet, and realized there was nothing to get us where we needed to go in that direction. The "main" road we were on was in very rough shape, and we pulled off into a pristine plowed shopping center full of closed stores. It was around 11pm at this point, and after a brief discussion we agreed this was stupid and we should just find a hotel and bunker down. Since we were without GPS, we teamed up on our blackberries to figure out where we were, and googled the nearest hotel. With luck (here I go using that word again), there was a Holiday Inn only a half mile back the way we came, and they had open rooms!). How hard could that last half mile be?
We headed out from the shopping center (no joke there were 3 plows in action in that parking lot), and BAM we get stuck in the median b/w the east and west lanes of the main road. This side of the road was in horrific condition, and the Hyundai Elantra was too low of a car to deal well with the height of the snow in some spots. With Alexandra behind the wheel, I got back out and we proceeded to dig, push, dig, push, shovel snow from tires by hand, push, rock the car, shove the car sideways, etc... for the next 40 minutes - going about 10-30 feet for every 5 minutes of effort. the real killer was the inconsistent road clearings, making it hard to pick the most effective path to put the car on.
The winds were about 50 mph and constant, and the visibility was horrible. Knowing warmth was a mere half mile away, I persisted. A cop car came by, and while they are not allowed to actively help dig out people (unless of a medical emergency) - he called a tow truck to help us out of a really bad rut. I got into this rut b/c we had to stop the car to avoid hitting an equally-stuck minivan in front of us. While waiting for the tow, I helped the mini-van get back on the road, and the guy there was nice enough to give me his extra pair of gloves (did I mention I didn't have any gloves up until this point?) Thank the gods I had my excellent, spanking-new North Face winter coat courtesy of Alexandra. :)
At this point I told Alexandra that if she got any momentum to not stop and let me in the car. Momentum is key in these situations, so I told her to just drive as far as she could and I'd catch up on foot. Right about the time the tow truck came, there were about 7 or 8 other cars nearby that were all in the same situation I was in. One family stopped and loaned me a shovel for a few minutes, which was a huge help as I was in a major snowbank at the time. The tow truck that showed up got stock about 100 feet away, and I was starting to consider the real possibility we would spend the night in the car. Thankfully we had a lot of water and a tank full of gas.
However, when things looked at their worst, I gave a hard shove and zoom! Alexandra had some speed and off she went!
I was so exhilarated that I just started to run as fast as I could. I could barely feel my legs and feet, I was covered in snow, my ears were frozen - but I ran anyway. I was hopped up on adrenaline and was very much "in the moment". Alexandra and I were the only 2 things moving on that road, and we sped past quite a few other stranded vehicles - including a NYC Bus that was stretched across 80% of the street (which Alexandra deftly avoided as she was speeding away from me). The car got stuck again about 150 yards (a football field and a half) from where I freed her loose, and I climbed into the passenger seat - panting and starting to feel exhausted. After a few minutes of catching my breath and sucking down some water - I noticed another car stuck in front of us. It was the family that stopped earlier and loaned me the shovel. I took another sip of water, and threw my gloves back on and headed out to help them. It was the right thing to do after they helped me. during the 20 minutes I spent helping them dig out their car, a plow came by and cleared a nice swath for people to filter out!
I got the family free, and it took only about 10 more minutes to get our own car onto the newly plowed path. This time, Alexandra stopped and get me into the car and we got the rest of the way to the hotel without getting stuck! We arrived at the hotel at a quarter to 1am - and got ourselves a nice warm room. My frozen feet and legs took a long, very painful time to thaw out. It was the worst pins and needles feeling constantly for about 15 minutes. We quickly passed out and woke up again around 8 the next morning. I was quite a bit sore, but overall I felt pretty good and we went down for some breakfast.
The roads were in rough but manageable shape, and an hour or so later we headed back out to get ourselves home. We did pretty good to get back into Manhattan, and it would be reasonable to assume my story would end here - but this time I'm not that lucky!
Manhattan was a complete and utter MESS. We got up 1st avenue all right, but quickly realized that turning up 89th street to our apartment was out of the question - as it hadn't been plowed yet. So with Alex holding down the fort, I proceeded to carry all of the fruits of our IKEA adventure from the day before a block and a half through icy sidewalks, snow banks and grey slushy goo to our apartment. I got quite a few weird looks as I carried the tropical palm tree down the street. After 3 trips of this, we were ready to drive the car one last measly block to the AVIS rent a car on 90th Street. Seeing that 90th street was in just as rough shape as 89th, I decided to drive around the block to hit the road with some momentum. After going up to 95th street, over to 2nd avenue, back down to 90th street and back east to the intersection of 90th and 1st, we were ready to plow down towards York and give back the car. The light turned green and then some stupid Manhattanite walked in front of the car, killing all of our momentum and we hit the snowbank at the east side of 1st avenue with a slow, not-so-glorious thud. Ultimately it wouldn't matter as the street had just too much snow.
I left Alex with the car and walked down to the end of the block and told Avis my situation. I was greeted with "well you just have to bring the car back somehow". After giving my license as collateral, I was "lucky" enough to be given a small metal hand shovel with which to achieve the task at hand. I went through another round of shovel, shovel, dig, push, rock, push, move 20 feet forward, repeat for the next 2 hours. In the middle of it all, a few other people nearby were digging out their parked car, and were nice enough to dump all of the extra snow in the middle of the street, just to move their car FIVE F-ING FEET into a garage - because they didn't want it on the street. As they walked away, they did not register me at all and walked away. The final insult was when Avis couldn't even dig a pathway to their entrance, which I had to do on my own. I got the car into the garage, and was given one last kick in the pants with a $13 gas charge because the tank wasn't full due to the 2 hours it was travelling at 0.001 miles per hour as I self-plowed 90th street.
Through the entire ordeal, I kind of surprised myself with how present I was in the situation, how I was able to cultivate a positive mindset, and got what needed to be done - done. I didn't complain or whine or panic, I just took responsibility and took care of my situation as best as I could. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and kick some ass.
- Chris
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