On Monday morning, the winds up here were howling. The power went out briefly, knocking out the computer before checking the weather, so I just took a shower and drove to work. My car, restored to pre-recall status started as it should. Driving through the neighborhood, sheltered by the houses and a few trees wasn’t bad, but once past the new hockey arena, three blocks away, the road surrounded by farm fields allowed the Northwest Winds free rein to blow snow that at times totally engulfed the car. I crept along slowly, intermittently seeing the yellow stripes in the middle of the road. The car wandered quite a bit fighting the strong cross wind with a blind driver. I was beginning to wonder if I would even see the intersection 1 sectional mile away where I was to turn left.

Eventually, the pavement markers “YIELD AHEAD” and the actual signs on the side of the road appeared out of the white on white world, but shortly after the turn, I hit a drift which completely hung my wheels up off the pavement. And the cell phone was left at home. Luckily, the winter survival gear was in the trunk, so I grabbed the parka and gantlets along with the shovel and scouted my options leaving my car idling and flashing uselessly in the total white-out. Several more drifts were ahead, so continuing on to campus was impossible. Going back was the only option. There was a portion of the road behind me which had been drifted clear where I could turn around to head home. I just had to shovel out ten feet or so to get clear.

By now, I was already freezing, so I got into my car to warm up and change into a dry hat. The raging wind and drifting snow had already coated the inside of my car even though the driver side door was in the lee. When I stepped out again, the wind immediately ripped open my parka hood and it flapped uselessly as I worked to free my car from the side of the road. At times, the wind nearly ripped the shovel from my hands. The ground blizzard was so strong, that my lungs were at times inadequate sucking against he wind induced vacuum. The Bernoulli effect wrought real was making this misadventure feel like an assault on Everest. What if a truck or a plow comes along while I am stranded in the middle of the road? It seemed rather silly to even be out risking life and limb: I could walk to campus and abandon the car. But I would not abandon the car unless the drift defeated me.

It took three shifts of shoveling the dense drift and warming up inside until the car would back up. The rear window defrost had lost the battle with the wind and melting interior snow so I was driving blind in more ways than one. I had to shovel out of one more small drift in my two point turn around zone before I got the car headed back home again.

It was absolutely amazing how the wind carried snow crashed in waves over the car, much like surf from the ocean. I was all over the road seeing glimpses of the center road stripe to the left and then to the right of my car. sometimes at rather rakish angles. My tires warned me on hitting the edge of the road a couple of times, helping keep us out of the ditch. I made it home, but it was one hairy five mile round trip.

When I got home, the campus had been prudently closed. Heck even the Highways around here were closed and the radio man said plows had been pulled from the interstate between Grand Forks and the border with Canada. Dave wrote me about the remote campus emergency text sign-up. I am now connected to that network.

Lessons learned: Dave’s 30 MPH wind limit is to be prudently respected up here in the high plains. Get a battery powered radio in case the power goes out again. Remember to grab the propane campstove for the worst case scenario. Keep the survival gear in the car, not the trunk. Winter is serious up here. THIS BEEN A WARNING. THIS IS ONLY A WARNING.

If I had believed in Karma as anything but a scam to keep the peasants in their miserable place, my misadventure could have been thought as payback for all the trash talking I had made against the SUV. No telling if that combination of bald tires and higher ground clearance would have made much better progress against those drifts. No matter what abomination you might be driving, you still cannot see anything in the waves of white-out. Lucky for me, I was the only idiot out on the road outside my neighborhood.

Lucky for me, I survived to be part of the winning team ($400 prize money/5) in the Campus Energy Challenge. My team mates were rock stars. Knocking off all but one team before I even had to answer a question. But that quarter final match came down to the fifth question, tied 2-2, I took the buzzer button and faced off against one of theres. “Multiple choice question: Geothermal heat drives its energy from: A) The earth’s therm . . .” BZZZZT! The mc called on me: “A) The earths thermal energy!” Easy. The final round for $400, the kids answered their questions before the multiple choices were offered, not even waiting to hear if the correct answers were in the A, B, C, or D slots. We won 3-0! Woo-Hoo. Pictures were taken, handshakes and hugs exchanged and more importantly, I have connected with some of my students.

Writings by Jim Farrell

Been thinking about you, our last encounter, the heavens, the sun, the histories of human condition, it’s evolution, anarchy, revolt, the constraints of participating in mainstream thought, culture and society, adventure, consolidation of possessions, dissipation of life, the density of the Winter past and the freedoms that  Spring promise.