Oh, The Weather Outside Is Frightful

We got our first significant snowfall recently, and, as usual, people reacted with complete and utter panic. Store shelves were cleared of bread, milk and toilet paper in under an hour. (Hint: Don't rush out and buy the first two, and you won't need the third!)

Having moved here from the northeast, Tim and I always shake our heads in disbelief. A few inches? Don't make us laugh! Let us know when it's really going to snow. After all, we once survived a blizzard. (This is where the screen should get all white and wavy and harp music should play.)

We had driven back home for an Easter visit, and when Tim, Tom and I left on Monday (in Tim's new car), the snow was gently falling. No big deal. We'd seen worse. Yeah. Turns out we hadn't.

Six hours, sixty miles, about sixteen tons of snow and half a basket of Easter candy later, we were zipping along at a speedy five miles per hour, looking for the first exit with a hotel or motel. Anything. The interstate and turnpike were both being closed, and the weatherman on the radio was predicting a bad storm (No! Ya think ?!)

Finally, through the driving snow, we saw it. A sign for a motel just a mile ahead. Yea! Civilization. Well, sort of. The motel itself wasn't actually a mile ahead. The formerly dirt and gravel road that led to the motel was a mile ahead. The motel itself was down this road which now resembled the black diamond run at Camelback Mountain complete with moguls.

As we skidded to a stop in front of the motel, Tim pried his fingers one by one from the steering wheel and mopped up the rivers of sweat pouring down his face. We bundled up in our spring jackets and dashed (well, not so much dashed as plowed) into the office.

Before we could even get a "hello" past our chattering, blue lips, the woman behind the counter informed us that they were full up, and then returned to watching her game show. Okaaay. Um. Sorry to interrupt your busy schedule, but do you know of any other places nearby? Maybe some down the line, but you really don't know. Great. Well, thanks for all your help. No, no. Don't get up. We'll see ourselves out.

So, down the line we crept, in Tim's new car, through a bunch of tiny little towns whose names I couldn't even begin to spell while the snow continued to waft down at a rate of about twenty feet an hour.

Place after place (including one which I'm pretty sure was the model for Hitchcock's Bates Motel), the answer was the same: No room at the inn. (Hellooooo. It's Easter. Didn't these people know that was the Christmas story?)

As we approached the town of Pottsville, desperation began to set in (hey, the candy was running low), and we had expanded out search to include all-night McDonalds and 24-hour laundromats. Just as we were debating whether our igloo should have an eastern or western exposure, we found it. A motel with the last two rooms in all of Pennsylvania (well, eastern PA at least).

Dumping our bags in the rooms, we rushed up to the restaurant for dinner, licking our lips in anticipation of anything that was not shaped like either a bunny or an egg. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea because the dining room was full, there was at least a two hour wait for a table, and they weren't sure exactly what they would have left on the menu at that point.

Not willing to see how low our blood sugar could drop before we passed out, we opted for the bar. Unfortunately, they were not in a much better position. They had Yingling beer and steamed clams (at this point, I would almost have eaten a real bunny). But, since our only other choice was to eat the actual Easter basket (there was a brief moment when I did wonder if it could be any worse than rice cakes), we bellied up to the bar.

To add insult to injury, the next morning, the snow was rapidly melting and about an hour later when we crossed over the Maryland border the grass was green and the trees already blooming.

A few inches of snow? Hah!