The Life and Times of a Navy Husband

Last Friday (the Friday before Christmas), we left Newport for Upstate New York. Even though we got an early start—seven o’clock: early for us—the first leg of our Journey to the Midwest took us right into the heart of the first serious winter storm of the year (it was two days before the season officially began; Mr. Frost apparently also wanted to get an early start). We knew the snow-maker was on its way (it had already whitewashed much of the Midwest), but we’re stubborn when it comes to holiday plans.

We made it past Albany before we saw a single snowflake. And then we saw lots of snowflakes. The only safe place to drive was the right lane, where a caravan of cars and trucks was keeping a two-track of asphalt uncovered. There were, of course, a fair number of daredevils—eighteen-wheelers on a schedule, front-wheel drive Honda Civics without a clue—passing in the left lane, but I stayed out of it except in extreme cases.

The Raptor’s all-wheel drive handled the mess admirably. We only felt her lose her grip a couple times during our two days of driving. We had her serviced (heh) the Monday before we left. The Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) dash light had clicked on, so I asked them to check that out and rotate the tires and do the rest of the 20,000-mile maintenance.

I’m a little peeved at the Mazda service guys because the TPMS light chimed on again the night before we left. When I checked the pressure myself, one tire had about half the PSI it’s supposed to have, and two more were at about seventy-five percent. On Sunday, during the second leg of the journey, we ran out of windshield washer fluid. Grr.

On Sunday, we faced more bad driving conditions. Danielle woke me up before sunrise. ‘What time is it?’ ‘Quarter to five. I’ve been laying here for forty-five minutes having visions of horrible weather and a long line at the border.’

So we got up and, after getting around and saying goodbyes to her grandparents, with whom we were staying, we hit the road. At six-thirty a.m. in December in New York, the sun’s not up, yet. The roads had a couple inches of snow on them and more was falling fast. Shortly after sun up, I spotted a tractor-trailer in the snow a hundred feet off the road.

Then, just east of Buffalo, the real snow started. Danielle was at the wheel in white-out conditions, creeping along at twenty m.p.h. with her hazards on (at her backseat-driving husband’s request). Once across the bridge into Canada (the lines were non-existent; most people weren’t stupid enough to be traveling), we missed a turn because we couldn’t see the road signs.

We finally arrived at our destination after a full ten hours on the road across New York and Ontario. Four hours more than it would have taken in clear weather.

Ugh.