some words to not

this is one to be set in memory.

taking off from montreal yesterday at 5:30pm, i got ready for a calm drive down to boston. it was lightly snowing in the canadian city, and i didn't mind that the quaint april weather was causing some wetness and traffic on the champlain bridge.

three days earlier, the drive up there from boston took me just over 4.5 hours, so this time around, when i arrived at the border (an hour south of montreal) at 7pm to a quiet sunset, i was expecting to be home before 11pm.

but with the darkness and the vermont altitude, the snow started picking up, and before i knew it, at 7:30 i was in a full-blown april snowstorm, wilder than any i've experienced before.

pretty soon i couldn't see anything. my headlights were reflected off the incoming snowflakes, resulting in a 100x speed version of the old starfield simulation screensaver. turning up the headlights to high beam only made it worse, amplifying the influx, and given the fact that the thick snowfall totally obscured my vision, i actually considered turning off the headlights altogether.

still unfazed, i tried to keep a steady 55 mph, although the fact that i was consistently taking over cars bearing vermont license plates driving much slower than me had me thinking that maybe i should heed the locals, who have a better idea than me of what snowstorm driving should be like.

within another half an hour, i kind of wished i had the visibility i had 30 minutes ago. back then you could still make out the lane markings blurry behind the flurry of flakes, but at 8:30pm, the road was covered in a blanket of white with no indication of where your wheels should be except the faint tire marks of the car ahead of me. given, that is, that the tracks weren't snowed over already.

my headlights illuminated about 5 meters in diameter, and with the clouds obscuring the moon and there being no road lamps around, if the world ended in a cliff ahead and to the sides of my immediate surroundings, i wouldn't have known the difference. this vision strikingly reminded me of the brilliantly edited car chase scene from fargo, which i just watched the night before:

at 9:30pm i got hungry and decided to stop in montpellier, vermont, probably the sleepiest of all state capitals. getting on the exit ramp i realized why everyone was driving so slow: my car did not like taking the turn at all. instead it just wanted to keep going straight, which it was almost able to do, landing me right in the ditch. luckily, i was only going 30 mph at that point and i got it back on the road. off the highway, though, the snow was already so thick that my wheels rotated twice for every inch they gained on the ground.

still 180 miles from boston, i tried to not think about how the hell i was going to get home while i ate a lonely enchilada at julio's cantina on state street.

back on interstate 89, i lost my courage to drive over 30 mph as the winds picked up and slid my car sideways with ease, making me feel as if a child was gripping my steering wheel from the bottom and tugging on it while i was trying to keep it straight. in the background i listened to christian radio shows, reminding me that jesus loves me, and bringing on rock songs such as "my god is real".

visibility was still zero, and now traction was following in line. the road ahead (or more precisely the patch of it that i could see rushing between my front wheels) was clear white, and only the ridged edges of the highway directed me from time to time back to its center. cars were now rare (approaching 11pm), which was good considering i was having a hard time keeping a straight line even at 25 mph. i guess the locals know better than to leave the house.

the only thing interrupting what must be the most tense monotony imaginable were occasional deviations in the tire tracks, changing from straight perspective lines to mirrored question marks, trailing off to the left and then curving around and back on the right side of the road. these warning signals were sometimes accentuated by a car crashed on the side of the road. i lowered my speed even more.

by the time i stopped around lebanon, new hampshire, the time was well approaching midnight, and the snow was already 6 inches high. april weather alright.

thus i inched ahead, and relief only came around 2am when i got to the i-93, where there was some lighting and snow ploughs were in effect. the lights revealed a veritable winter wonderland with every twig coated in white powder. unfortunately, however, just when the road was more forgiving, i hit the solid shooting line of ploughs from their back, forcing me to drag behind them at 10 mph for almost 45 minutes.

but it all ended well. at 3:30am - ten hours after i left l'anecdote - i pulled up to my house, pretty thankful to be alive and without having had as much as scratched the rental car. the only reminder of what it has been through was a thick icy froth of white covering its grille, bumper, and front license plate.