Eight hours of white knuckles

If you look closely at the above picture, you’ll actually see something that resembles trees and a telephone pole. This was a typical scene looking out over the hood of my Jeep for about eight hours today as I drove from the Burin Peninsula, where I had been giving some training, back to my home in Gander. It was one of the worst snowstorms I’ve ever been caught in. Most of the time, I just had to crawl along, aiming towards the “whitest” part of things, and hope that I was still on the pavement and not heading blindly towards a curve or a steep ditch.

Normally, I like long driving trips because they give me time to think, reflect, plan and relax. But this occasion, I could only peer out into the whiteness for signs of nearing the edge of the road, trying not to lose control of the vehicle, and not get too shocked when I’d suddenly plow into any of the unseen 2-foot-high drifts that periodically mark places where the wind squalls whip snow up over the road from the barrens. Almost no roads were plowed, and of the eight hours, there was only about fifteen minutes when I passed through communities: the rest was essentially just wilderness with the occasional cabin or gas station.

I got back an hour ago, and my muscles are still knotted with the built-up tension of concentrating so hard for so long, preparing for the worst at any moment.