After Josephine was born, I stopped traveling for a while for work. Both because I was working on a project that didn't require any traveling, but naturally also to be home with the new little wonder.
Recently I've started traveling a fair bit again because of my involvement with Microsoft's new-ish technology called Silverlight. This year has brought me to Broomfield, Colorado (near my old haunts in Longmont, CO), on my first trip to the Middle East when I went to Beirut, Lebanon and just this past week I was in Buffalo, New York known as the snow capital of the U.S. (although this apparently incorrect- Buffalo is only the 11th snowiest place in the U.S.)
It was an interesting trip to Buffalo when looking at the transportation. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Southern California it is worth explaining the distances involved. Redlands, CA is about 1 hour 15 minutes drive time from Los Angeles International Airport affectionately known just as LAX to almost anybody who's ever been there. Of course that drive time assumes near perfect conditions i.e. no traffic. On Monday I had a flight from LAX to Chicago-O'Hare leaving at 10.22 am (boarding at 9.52 am). As anybody who's ever driven on the SoCal freeways also knows: there's practically never a time with "no traffic". Even Google Maps' directions says "2 hours 20 minutes in traffic". Doing the math I left home at 6.30 am to make it in time for my 11.22 am flight (check-in had to be completed 45 minutes before take-off at the latest).
At 9.14 am I completed check-in and dropped off my one bag. I'll refrain from detailing what I had to do to get to the airport at that time and not an hour later.. Let's just say I may have bent a few traffic laws. I arrived at the gate at about 9.55 am when they were boarding zone 2 (I was zone 4).
Driving from Buffalo Airport to the hotel I immediately got a taste of things to come. My exit off the highway was icy because it had just recently dropped below freezing and the otherwise efficient crews hadn't yet salted everything. As I was braking to stop before hitting the poor soul in front of me, the ABS-enabled brakes promptly kicked in. For once I was happy to have had my driver's training classes in Denmark during the winter. It was disconcerting nonetheless.
Everything was uneventful from Monday until Thursday. On Thursday, December 10th, the Buffalo area was hit by the first major snow storm of the season. And I was in the middle of it. Buffalo is located right next to Lake Erie and suffers from what is known as the lake effect. For this snow storm the lake effect band hit a home-run right down the small area I was driving.
Around noon there was a nice blanket of snow on top of the cars in the parking lot. Around 3.30 pm it looked like there was a pause in the storm. We decided to start packing up and get out before we'd get caught when it started back up. By 4 pm it had started up a little bit, but I ventured out to the car all the same. At about 4.05 pm I was sitting still in my car on Route 5 with the emergency flashers on, absolutely no visibility and no idea where the road actually was.
What followed was an hour of inching along at 5-10 mph following the faint fog light of the car 10 feet in front of me. At several points I stopped and waited until there was just a couple of feet of visibility in front of the car. About halfway I called The Wife and told her where I was and to call 911 to have a search party sent out if she didn't hear from me in the next hour.. and I was only half joking.
Recently I've started traveling a fair bit again because of my involvement with Microsoft's new-ish technology called Silverlight. This year has brought me to Broomfield, Colorado (near my old haunts in Longmont, CO), on my first trip to the Middle East when I went to Beirut, Lebanon and just this past week I was in Buffalo, New York known as the snow capital of the U.S. (although this apparently incorrect- Buffalo is only the 11th snowiest place in the U.S.)
It was an interesting trip to Buffalo when looking at the transportation. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Southern California it is worth explaining the distances involved. Redlands, CA is about 1 hour 15 minutes drive time from Los Angeles International Airport affectionately known just as LAX to almost anybody who's ever been there. Of course that drive time assumes near perfect conditions i.e. no traffic. On Monday I had a flight from LAX to Chicago-O'Hare leaving at 10.22 am (boarding at 9.52 am). As anybody who's ever driven on the SoCal freeways also knows: there's practically never a time with "no traffic". Even Google Maps' directions says "2 hours 20 minutes in traffic". Doing the math I left home at 6.30 am to make it in time for my 11.22 am flight (check-in had to be completed 45 minutes before take-off at the latest).
At 9.14 am I completed check-in and dropped off my one bag. I'll refrain from detailing what I had to do to get to the airport at that time and not an hour later.. Let's just say I may have bent a few traffic laws. I arrived at the gate at about 9.55 am when they were boarding zone 2 (I was zone 4).
Driving from Buffalo Airport to the hotel I immediately got a taste of things to come. My exit off the highway was icy because it had just recently dropped below freezing and the otherwise efficient crews hadn't yet salted everything. As I was braking to stop before hitting the poor soul in front of me, the ABS-enabled brakes promptly kicked in. For once I was happy to have had my driver's training classes in Denmark during the winter. It was disconcerting nonetheless.
Everything was uneventful from Monday until Thursday. On Thursday, December 10th, the Buffalo area was hit by the first major snow storm of the season. And I was in the middle of it. Buffalo is located right next to Lake Erie and suffers from what is known as the lake effect. For this snow storm the lake effect band hit a home-run right down the small area I was driving.
Around noon there was a nice blanket of snow on top of the cars in the parking lot. Around 3.30 pm it looked like there was a pause in the storm. We decided to start packing up and get out before we'd get caught when it started back up. By 4 pm it had started up a little bit, but I ventured out to the car all the same. At about 4.05 pm I was sitting still in my car on Route 5 with the emergency flashers on, absolutely no visibility and no idea where the road actually was.
What followed was an hour of inching along at 5-10 mph following the faint fog light of the car 10 feet in front of me. At several points I stopped and waited until there was just a couple of feet of visibility in front of the car. About halfway I called The Wife and told her where I was and to call 911 to have a search party sent out if she didn't hear from me in the next hour.. and I was only half joking.
I finally got to the hotel after meeting up with five other cars and being led out of the worst part of the storm by a New York State Patrol police car with lights flashing. Route 5 was closed for all traffic right after the exit where I needed to get off for my hotel. Several colleagues got slightly panicky IM messages declaring that there was absolutely no way I was going anywhere the next day unless conditions improved significantly.
As you can tell, I did survive, but I'm not driving in anything like that anytime soon.
Next trip: Hong Kong in January!
