Ah Winter - and the story of the 10.5 hour commute

Ah, beautiful! Who wouldn't want to wake up on a sunny Thursday morning...
              to bask in the rays of the sun
                        from the warmth of the house...
                                while looking out at the beautiful snow covered trees?

It was a beautiful sight to behold, but to stop here would leave off the most important part of the story - how it came to be that I was able to take this picture from my bed late in the morning.

Where shall I begin - long story alert...

The afternoon before (Wednesday, January 26th), the office closed early, and here I am about 3 hours in to my commute a little after 7:00 p.m.:



Realizing all the major routes (395, 95, 495) were closed:


Around 8 p.m. when I thought a UFO was over the stoplight - and I caught the green sky on video:


Me talking again at 8:50 p.m. after some people pushed me up a hill and when I thought I was a mile from GMU (which I wasn't):


Luckily, I had peanut butter cookies:


9:24 p.m. at a strip mall parking lot (no gas station and almost on empty):


Lots of people stuck in a parking lot of all places. It doesn't look like much snow, but whatever it was (snow,ice,slush, rain), it was not cooperating with our cars.


10:46 p.m. - already forgetting what date it was:


Realizing that I should probably show what my view was for about 10.5 hours:


Hand exercises at 11:18 p.m. to stay occupied:


Took a picture to have a break from the video setting:

11:35 p.m. and I'm so over the whole experience:


Don't laugh at that last one - I was going crazy.


Sitting in the same spot - at almost midnight:



Turning off the car - almost out of gas:


Grown man going to the restroom (or not) right in front of us:


I'm not the only one taking pictures and videos along the way:


12:33 in the morning -a glimpse of the university:



So, if you got to this point (which most people probably didn't), you know that there was no way I was going in to work the next day after arriving home around 2 a.m.

But, blessings abound -good samaritans all over the place, I didn't run out of gas (shocking since I had only put $10 in an empty tank the day before) and I got home safely.

Here's to little traffice adventures and traffic inspired sick days....though I actually did work a bit the next day..but, from home and in my bed (which is where I took the pictures from the first part of the post).