Snowstorm Gandolf

A few Christmases ago, finishing my first semester of grad school, I drove home to Washington from SLC for the holidays.  The weathermen warned of a devastating blizzard on its way to the Pacific Northwest; but, having grown up thereabouts, I knew that most snow "storms" in Washington were a once-a-year half-inch that melted next day in the rain.  Having gotten my undergrad among the frozen wastes of eastern Idaho, I was rather cavalier concerning said blizzard-alerts.

The fact that this was the same December when Las Vegas snowed 12-inches apparently didn't tip me off.

Needless to say, I drove straight down the throat of the Northwest's worst blizzard in 20 years.  I do believe I was 5 the last there was that much snow.  2 feet in one night, no joke.

The first inkling of the price of my hubris came somewhere in northern Oregon. My brother asked if we could sit down for lunch, to stretch our legs; I said, "sure, you bet."  Yet as we crossed the parking-lot of some nameless Subway, I was uneasily perplexed to note snow still on the ground. 

I casually inquired of le sandwich-artiste therein if it was in fact snowing farther west.  "Oh yeah," she replied just as casually, "There's a snow-chain warning for all semis, and I-80 is supposed to close tonight."  Right on cue, in the window behind her, snowflakes began to fall silent to the ground.

A sudden panic seized me.

"Samuel, we  have to go now," I exclaimed.

"But I thought we were going to sit down to eat," he said sadly.

"No, we have to go now."

We quickly consumed our sandwiches in the car, and the farther west I went, the more I passed pulled-over semis, the drivers scrambling to chain-up their 18-wheelers.  Suddenly my little sedan felt very small.

Sure enough, the snow grew heavier, not lighter, the farther I traveled.  My hopes of at least reaching Portland before sundown were dashed as the last rays of light were lost in the white-out along the Columbia River gorge.  Stop-and-go traffic prevailed in the chaos--Northwesterners cancel school and church for half-inch remember, 2-foot-blizzard-drops are simply beyond comprehension. 

"How far have we traveled?" my brother asked once, after a half-hour nap.

"Oh, about 7 miles," I replied, glancing at my GPS, as the ETA in the corner steadily rose higher and higher...

At one point, the only way I knew I was still on the freeway was because I could see the break-lights of the semi ahead of me.  I basically fishtailed at 35 mph for 300 miles.  When two years later the mechanic told me that all my tire-rods were loose and needed replacement, I knew why.

I called various extended family in the Portland/Vancouver area, not even aspiring to make it home that night, only to safe shelter.  "Oh, we don't have a spare bed or couch," they each replied in turn, "We have no place for you, sorry!"  The fact that they said this near Christmas was apparently lost on them; no room at the inn indeed.

I've traveled the world I mused while gripping my steering-wheel white-knuckled and wide-eyed I've wandered the mean streets of San Juan, Guadalajara, and Beijing, and now I'm going to die less than a hundred miles from home.  In the snow.  In Oregon.  The irony.

Obviously I survived.  As I pulled onto the I-205 to connect to the I-5, my Dad called, to check on my progress; turns out the news had just announced the closure of the I-80.  Glad I hadn't sat down to enjoy my tasteless Subway sandwich!

I even made it all the way home that night--the snow-fall was merely heavy as opposed to white-out once I breached western Washington.  I still had to take a back-country-road to home once it became clear the un-plowed hill my house sat on was unassailable, but I made it, I surely made it, without a scratch even!

(Then a UPS truck accidentally backed into my parked-bumper the next day. c'est la vie).

As I lugged my suitcase up the snow-hidden driveway, I felt like a champ, invincible, victorious--and that after a semester of reading Samuel Beckett and such, wherein I'd stared the somber inevitability of death in the face.  Oh, death is surely inevitable, let's be clear, but not that night, not for me!  Oh no--that night, I was better than death.

But every Christmas since, I've flown home.

I was put in this reflective mood by snow-storm Gandolf (apparently we name snow-storms now??) currently hammering the Salt Lake valley, and my gratitude that I'm not driving down Gandolf's throat.  I'm reminded of that white-knuckled night in the middle of white-out western-Oregon, as I faced something far bigger than I. 

Even here in snow-hardened Utah, there are still storms that exceed our abilities to comprehend, let alone prepare for.  In a strange way, I like it when Mother Nature reminds us who's still in charge, that she's still far bigger and better than us, that we still adapt to her, not vice-versa.  The awe from snow-storms are humbling, and therefore exalting.