WINTER... way too soon (Part 40a)

Even though it hadn’t snowed for a few days the back roads that I used to get over to Elle’s school were still snow packed. It took a little longer than usual but I really had no problems. The girls were ready and anxious to get on the road. When I first left my school and saw the condition of the road I thought that I would take the old, tried and true way home. But, with no trouble on my way to Elle’s, I changed my mind. The “short cut” I’d taken on the way home for Thanksgiving had proved to be a time saver so I figured I’d try it again.

Initially, it seemed like a good choice. The further South I got the better the roads were. But it wasn’t long after I’d turned onto the “short cut” that the sky turned black. Within minutes it started to snow... and snow... and snow! And it wasn’t a dry snow like usual. It was a wet snow and wind driven. The windshield wipers just pushed the snow to the side and with each sweep the space I had to look though became smaller and smaller. After about 20 minutes or so I had to stop to push it off the windshield and rear window. The roads were getting a bit slippery but were certainly not dangerous. At Thanksgiving I’d stopped for Elle to use the bathroom about two hours after leaving her school. It was well past two hours and we still hadn’t passed the gas station I’d stopped at. I rationalized it by thinking it was because I couldn’t drive as fast. But when another half hour went by and I still didn’t recognize any landmarks. I did find a place to stop for Elle and broke one of the cardinal rules for males and asked for directions.

What a shock to find out that I was no longer headed Southeast but heading almost due East. The wet snow, because of the strong wind, had plastered itself against the route markers, obliterating the numbers and I had just plain missed the turn I needed. I told the guy where I was headed and asked which way was best... to go back or to keep going. He told me to flip a coin. With that we got back in the car and kept going. It was soon dark and the roads still hadn’t been plowed so it was really slow going. The girls started complaining about being hungry. We hadn’t seen any place to eat in over an hour so I promised that I’d stop at the next grocery store. We could see a “glow” up ahead and I figured that it might be a town. But, before we got there we saw a fire up in a tree ahead of us. It really looked eerie and as we drove past I could see that it was actually a transformer on a light pole that was on fire. About a half mile further on we entered the town of Phonecia. There was a stop light and I wasn’t too pleased with that as the snow on the roadway was getting deeper. As we waited for it to change we were looking at the big plate glass window of a grocery store. The girls were all excited, thinking of the food inside. Even before the light changed to green we saw what was probably the brightest flash of light we’d ever seen. It came from inside the store and then everything went black. The stop light and all the street lights were out as well. There wasn’t even a flicker of light other than the dull glow from my snow packed headlights.

We sat there for a few minutes, too stunned to do anything. I knew that I had to get out and to push the snow away from the wipers and when I did I looked back and saw that the fire in the transformer we had seen had now fully engaged the nearby trees. Darkness on the one side and a creepy orange glow on the other. I had a hard time getting the car going. As I drove through the town it was really strange not to see any lights at all. As we reached the outskirts of town I found it getting harder and harder to move forward. The front bumper was actually pushing some snow. I think that was the first time that I became really concerned.

To be continued...