Rolled into the underground parking at 10pm. I think this might be a record for mileage covered in one trip, although this was spread over nine days — longer than I normally take. There was no deer-dodging today or near-accidents, thank heavens, but there were some light snow flurries near Buffalo and some heavier flurries west of Pearson Airport.
When I crossed the border into Ontario tonight I thought I was home free, then the snow worried me a bit. I already had enough bad weather on Friday to put me off long-range driving for a while, just let me get to my front door before I have to do this again! I was relieved to see the roads clear after the airport, and I completed Trip #8 (?) in six months in one piece.
Between Rochester and Buffalo I passed by one car that hit a railing, which saved it from ending up in the ditch. I kept thinking, ‘I can’t let that happen to me…’ — having an accident late at night, far from home and in the middle of nowhere is a monumental hassle even if it’s a minor one. It happened to me in January 2002, when I was returning from Los Angeles to SeaTac Airport. The flight was delayed due to weather, and I finally picked up my car around midnight and hit a raging snowstorm near Bellingham, slid on black ice at the bottom of a hill, spun around a few times and finally smacked into a railing. The grille went flying into the next county, and I ended up perpendicular on the I-5 while cars were coming over the hill and heading straight toward me. I tried not to panic and got the car started — !!! — and pulled over to survey the damage. The car was still drivable — old Volvos are like tanks — and I crawled through the rest of the snowstorm, nearly picked a fight with the border officer who didn’t think I was answering his questions quick enough, and dragged my sorry carcass into my apartment as dawn was breaking to report the incident to ICBC.
(Now, come to think of it, although Friday’s storm was rather harrowing it didn’t quite rival the endurance test of that snowstorm in Bellingham.)
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