It was about 10:30 am when we made this decision and they had been there since 2am so I'm sure that they were motivated for the walk. I tried to talk them out of bringing their luggage, but the husband felt confident it would be ok since the larger bag had rollers and they could carry the garment bag. The wife is 6 months pregnant and I learned later that she was wearing a skirt. She had boots, he did not. Neither of them had gloves or hats.
This is what it looked like while a waited for them. The semi trucks are in front of the two cars. I chose not to wait next to the cars because I was afraid that I would get blocked.I thought that I saw someone walking about three semis up and less than a minute later I got a call from them. He was concerned that they had been walking "forever" and still hadn't met up with me. I got out of my car and waved and indeed it was them.
She had an inch of snow on her head and her glasses were completely fogged. They were both pulling the handle of the large suitcase dragging it through the snow (of course the wheels were completely useless). Both smiled and breathed a sigh of relief when I grabbed the suitcase and dragged it the rest of the way.
It turns out that they were going from Baltimore to Lynchburg in an effort to visit his family for Christmas. His cell phone was almost dead and they were both chilled and wet all the way through. We convinced one of the cars to follow us out to the emergency shelter instead of waiting there, but two other drivers declined.
Once we were back in Charlottesville I thought that we were pretty much home free. I had underestimated other's lack of ability in snow and ice. The first exit was blocked by a semi so I shot straight through and got back on 29. I had to sort of plow through the deepre snow in the middle of the road to get on the on-ramp. The car following me didn't have snow experience and she didn't quite make it. A snow plow driver pushed her out while we ran back to my car so that she wouldn't have to stop again. Unfortunately I lost her when I entered 29 again. Hopefully she made it to the UVa Aquatic Center without much problem.
The next off-ramp should have been very clear because it is a major road, but there were 5 cars stuck there in random locations. They looked like they had been there for at least a couple of hours. We backed up and got back onto 29 without much effort. Thankfully the next exit directly onto UVa was clear. The snow was deeper there than we had previously experienced, but we made it to the shelter without any more incident-- although a truck almost ran into us coming out of a parking lot. I dropped the couple off and returned home.
Ironically the hardest driving part was when I got close to home. I slid a little right in front of a tv camera when I turned off of the main road and into my neighborhood. The sliding was a lot of fun once I realized that I wasn't going to be stuck (and I'm sure that it made for a good background shot as well). It was worse when I reached my townhouse parking area. Although the plows had gone through just before I left, the snow was quite deep. I guess that a lot more snow had fallen in almost 2 1/2 hours while I was gone. I almost got stuck because I had decided to back into my parking spot and had to plow snow out of the way near a speed bump.
These are pictures taken after I was safely home. You can see that my walks are no longer cleared... I don't even care because I love snow! I love driving in it and I hope that everyone else stays inside until Monday.
I also have a new found love of my Outback. While car shopping I hadn't even looked at them, but now I'm repenting.
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