8 days ago I broke a personal record for ‘most time spent in a vehicle’. It all started at 12:00pm when tweets surfaced around the state of Georgia stating that white powder was falling from our skies. Here’s a timeline of the brutal day that I experienced. Please notice the time stamps.
1:00pm – My brother gets home from work since every workplace across Atlanta shuts down and we both agree to doing donuts IN THE SNOW, in his Hummer. Pretty badass? Yes. After all, people in Atlanta rarely get this opportunity.
1:32pm – We leave the house headed to a pasture of snow, when we run into a little friend called traffic. We ditch our plans to do donuts and head for IKEA to do a little shopping. THE WORSE IDEA EVER.
2:10pm – Still in the car, we get a call from my brothers girlfriend saying that we have to pick up my nephew from daycare which is normally 15 minutes away from where we’re at. After experiencing the traffic jam we understood that IKEA was not in our best interest and we head to pick up my nephew.
4:10pm – On the way to picking up my nephew, I literally get out of the truck in the middle of traffic, walk to the closest gas station, buy Octopus sour worms, an Orange Powerade & Hot Fries and walk back to the truck (which is in the exact same spot.)
4:50pm – We make it to the daycare.
5:15pm – Heading down the East-West connector in Cobb County and we run into traffic again this time with a sleeping baby. Without traffic, we’re approximately 5 minutes away from our apartment with traffic we’re 3-4 hours away from my house.
7:23pm – We approach a road that we can take back to our apartment, that seems traffic jam proof. We make a right onto that road out of traffic and then we make an immediate left. When we make this left, there’s a steep hill going down with empty cars decorated on both sides of the road. This should’ve been a sign but we’re in a Hummer and we’re pretty much indestructible, right? Wrong. As we make our way down the hill the truck slides & slams into another truck which seemed to make the same mistake as us because it too was crashed into another truck.
7:46pm – After swapping contact info for insurance purposes, baby Carter awakens and this is when the night really starts.
Evil laugh from Baby Carter.
8:10pm – Baby Carter has no milk and is crying like he’s been sitting in traffic for 8 hours. We decided to make another attempt for home but just when we make this decision another truck makes the same mistake as us and crashes into our truck, leaving us stuck in between two trucks with room to only get out of 1 door. Oh yeah, and both of our phones die.
9:13pm – We borrow a iPhone car charger from someone down the street to give our phones a little juice. We look at our maps app and realize we’re an 1 hour and 21 minutes walking distance from where we were at and where we needed to be. With Carter low on milk supply and my brothers girlfriend trapped inside the house, we had two options, sleep in the car overnight with Carter crying or walk home and we did the only thing we could do. WALK. That’s right, we bundle up Carter as much as we could and started hiking with him in a carriage car seat.
10:34pm – With my brother and I trading off carrying my nephew, we’re almost at our first checkpoint, IHOP on South Cobb drive.
11:15pm – My brothers girlfriend reaches us and takes us home to rest.
Do I think I’m a hero? Of course. To have the drive and will to walk my little nephew through treacherous conditions and getting him to a warm place? Why wouldn’t I? But this all comes with a heart of champion. Now we will always have a great story to tell when Baby Carter grows up.
5 Comments
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I was also stuck on 285 4 miles from the airport where I was supposed to pick up my dad. Worst decision I made that night was not bringing my camera. We were stuck for 13 hours. I ended up getting off at the exit before mine and finding my way by winging it. My PA driving skills served me well. I feel bad for those that never encountered ice before and those stuck longer than I was.