Stranded in the Snow

Last night I went out with my girlfriend to one of our regular hotspots. Every Wednesday they have all-you-can-eat ribs, and this being Wednesday, I went for the ribfest.

My girlfriend, like a lot of women for some reason, doesn’t eat ribs. Must be something in the male chromosomes that gives us men the desire to eat ooey, sticky and messy ribs. Or anything messy – my girlfriend won’t eat anything messy in public, but that’s another story.

It was starting to really snow as we left for the restaurant. And there was a snow storm warning for the area – with snowfalls expected to be around 15 or more centimetres.

We took the bus, and managed to catch our buses without any problems getting there. Coming back was another story.

We didn’t wait to long for the first of two buses, probably less than 15-minutes. But by now, the snow was really coming down hard. It was a near white-out, and the snow was really pounding us, and piling up everywhere. It was a blizzard.

We waited for our second bus to get us home. And there were already a number of people at the bus stop, which usually indicates the bus was just about to come. But not tonight. Not under all the snow falling.

We kept seeing buses go the other way, but none were coming our way. We waited for about 30-minutes and then figured they were probably being turned around. There is a big hill a little way before us, and chances are the buses were not getting up the hill in the snow and ice.

So, we decided to walk – a walk which took probably 30-45-minutes or more. Not only that, it was almost all up hill, and we were walking into the wind – so snow and ice was continually pelting our faces.

We’re Canadians, so we were dressed for the weather. We’re used to lots of snow in the winter. We were bundled up well in our winter coats, gloves, toques, and boots and scarves.

But even with all those layers of protective clothing, it was still a challenge walking through all that snow. We were passing all the cars getting stuck on the hill – it was like walking through a parking lot, only this parking lot had a lot of angry drivers desperate to get moving.

We had to stop about halfway up the hill to breath – and pat off the snow. We were both covered in the white stuff.

Then we began our journey and we finally reached our destination – home. But it was quite an experience to walk through a blizzard, up hill, wind and snow in your face!

Maybe next time there is a blizzard on the way, we’ll order in.