Friday, December 14, 2007
Ice Storm Passage
In the last week we traversed the continent of Australia twice (from North to South, and from West to East); flew over the largest ocean on the planet; crossed North America by plane to Ohio; and yesterday drove 650 miles to New York City and Long Island.
We had to beat the ice storms in order to hear our daughter Leah's recitals, at Stony Brook on Long Island this weekend.
We had to beat the ice storms in order to hear our daughter Leah's recitals, at Stony Brook on Long Island this weekend. We've been watching the weather maps all week as storms barreled out of the Midwest into the Pennsylvania. Yesterday morning my folks woke us and suggested that we leave earlier, as another storm was coming. So we jammed everything into my little red car, and took off East, in an icy cold rainstorm.
All day we watched the thermometer in the car register 33 to 34 degrees, as we skirted the southern edge of the storm on I-70. We crossed the Muskingum River; the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Youghiogheny, the Susquehanna. As we drove up into the mountains, the road ascended into the foggy overcast. The sun came out briefly and the trees sparkled with hoarfrost as ragged clouds blew up out of the valleys. We listened to Norah Jones, NPR and an mp3 from the New York Academy of Science, a liguist discussing what language tells us about human nature.
Night fell, and we stopped for a bowl of chili and a map. We decided to "press on", hoping to cross the bridges in New York late at night. This was a calculated trade off: less traffic versus the stress of night time driving. But it paid off. We hit the George Washington Bridge and fly through the Bronx, onto Long Island in about 20 minutes. Another hour and we gladly take the last, smoke-filled hotel room in Stony Brook and collapse. Thirteen hours, but we are here.
