Winter Vacation Pt 2

Wednesday was a very emotional day. As a man, I try not to let any emotions other than "manly" emotions show. I let my wife have all the emotional ups and downs while I try to keep it together, calm and confident. The whole point of this vacation was for Serena's birthday, Thursday February 11th. Weeks ago, we had booked our hotel and bus for our vacation. The plan was to take the Mega Bus out of Philadelphia on Thursday in the afternoon. My father was going to give us a ride to Philadelphia. We were going to stay at the London hotel near central park for 4 days. We also had tickets to the Ed Banger 7 Year Anniversary Party at Terminal 5 in New York City. There are no refunds at the London. You pay up front for your reservation and if you cancel or you can't make it, you already paid for it. The Mega Bus fare was only a few dollars so that wasn't the big deal.

Delaware had declared a STATE OF EMERGENCY (everybody panic!) Tuesday night and it was in effect still on Wednesday. We called the London and found out that because of the circumstances with the weather they would allow us to change our reservations but they needed to know by 6:30 PM that night. Our Mega Bus was cancelled and we had to re-book a later ride. Then we decided that we were going to go no matter what. We kept our original plans and decided to invite the neighbors over to relieve some cabin fever.

One of our neighbors, Rachel, has a boyfriend who lives about a mile down our road. I offered to come pick him up since the Forester did so well in the snow the past weekend. Ryan and I jump in the Forester and tear off through the frozen tundra we call Smyrna. We were making good progress until we came to the end of the neighborhoods. The area used to be all farmland, meaning we have flat fields that the wind got some good speed across. The snow drift that filled the road was so deep it was up to the doors on the Forester. We were pushing through it and had about 15 more feet to go when the car came to a stop. The snow was so deep we had bottomed out on it. The wheels weren't touching the ground. We were only in our sneakers and didn't have a snow shovel. Ryan and I tried digging the car out, but it was no use. Brian, Rachel's boyfriend, called me and said he was suited up and he's coming with a shovel. I called Serena and asked her to go to our neighbor who had a farm tractor and ask him to come get us. Serena was so angry at this point that I was so big headed and got stuck. In the process of trying to dig ourselves out, Ryan had lost his iPhone. 

Ryan and I are waiting in the car trying to stay warm, it was below freezing and the winds were about 40 MPH. We see in the headlights something running towards us that looked like a space man with a snow shovel. 

Brian showed up with a snow shovel and started trying to dig us out. He found Ryan's iPhone underneath a foot of snow. By this point the wind had blown so much snow onto the car that we had difficulty opening the doors and getting out. Our neighbor showed up with a Suburban, but about 20 ft behind us he got stuck. After 20 minutes of trying to dig him out the tractor shows up.

This giant tractor pulled the heavy Suburban out with a fight. It seemed like the end was in sight. Our neighbor in the Suburban yelled out, "We'll be back for you!" This felt like it was straight out of a movie. Serena calls me about ten minutes later telling me they showed up at my front door saying there is no way they are gonna get us out because of the difficulty of getting their Suburban out. They said they had to go plow some other people out and didn't have time to come back and try and get me. I was then instructed to leave the vehicle and run down to where the drift wasn't as bad. The Suburban was waiting for us to take us back to my house. Luckily, the guy with the tractor wanted to try and get us out. So we ran back to the Forester and hooked it up with some chains and the tractor pulled us right out. It seems it was easier because my SUV was lighter than the Suburban. 

So the rest of the night was fun, we had a bunch of neighbors over and had dinner and played Apples to Apples. DJ Bis decided to do another live Session which we streamed as the music for our get together with the neighbors. Our neighbor Alvin asked us if we were taking the bus out of Smyrna to go to NYC. We had no idea there was a direct route from our little red neck town to the Big Apple. He gave us a flyer that was poorly designed with bad Engrish. We called the number on the flyer at 1 AM and within 30 minutes a guy with a heavy Asian accent called us back. He let us know that the buses were running on Thursday. This was great news and we decided to leave on their afternoon route. 

Winter Vacation Pt 1

I have been meaning to blog for over a week now. So many EPIC things have been happening. I haven't been motivated to write about any of these events or even had the chance to. It all started right before the first snow on February 5th. Serena and I decided to stay at my parents house because she had to work Saturday through Tuesday no matter what because she is a nurse. My folks live much closer to the hospital than we do, so we believed it wise to stay there.
I woke up to my alarm at 5 AM and went outside to clear the car off. The snow at this point had accumulated quite a bit. My little brother Jon and I got the car prepared and shoveled out to the grooves in the street. We got Serena to work but it took us a little over an hour. The Subaru Forester is a champ in the snow! We saw all kinds of vehicles get stuck in the snow. We repeated this journey that night at 7 PM and repeated on Sunday.
In the mean time I listened to DJ Bis play for 8 hours straight on a ustream session he called Cabin Fever.

By the time Monday came, the roads were clear enough that it was an almost normal commute. My car was stuck in the garage because whoever plowed our neighborhood decided it was a good idea to put all the snow in my driveway. We had come home to a 6 foot high pile of snow. We had no shovel since I had borrowed my neighbors last time. Fortunately I work down the street. I walked to work Monday and Tuesday. We couldn't wait for Wednesday, the first day to our winter vacation. We were getting worried our plans for our trip to New York would be affected by the snow.