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By Clement R. Dodge
Copyright 2012 by Clement R. Dodge
Saturday morning, 8:00.
What got me into this predicament was some bad decisions on my part, coupled with a little bit of bad luck. I’m stuck in my car in the middle of a Nebraska blizzard, and it looks like I’ll be here for a few days.
My first bad decision was thinking that I could beat the storm and get home before the worst of it hit. If I had a little bit more sense, I would be sitting in a warm hotel room right now. And my second bad decision was thinking that I could beat the storm by getting off the interstate and taking some back roads. If I hadn’t made that mistake, at least I would be sitting in a warm truck stop right now.
But instead, I’m stuck in the middle of a road that’s rarely traveled even during the best of conditions. And I doubt if anyone will come by here for at least a few days. Until then, I have to make the best of it on my own.
At least I made a few good decisions. I stayed with my car last night, even though I entertained a few thoughts of walking back the way I had come. Even though I was stuck in a drift of snow last night, the weather was still relatively mild, and I’ll admit that I thought about walking back to get some help.
Fortunately, I put that thought out of my mind. It had been at least a few miles since I had seen any sign of civilization, and it would have taken me hours to walk anywhere. And within two hours of getting stuck here, the weather did take a turn for the worse. According to the car thermometer, the temperature has been hovering right around 2 degrees. There is more snow coming down, and the wind is fierce. I don’t have any way of measuring the wind, but the radio reports that it is gusting up to 40 miles per hour, and I have no doubt that they’re right—just like they were right in predicting the storm in the first place. So it’s lucky that I stayed in the safety and relative comfort of my car.
I say relative comfort, because it’s not exactly comfortable here. It was a cold night last night, and I didn’t really get any sleep. But at least I’m out of the wind, I have warm clothes and a sleeping bag, and it’s not very likely that I’ll freeze to death.
My other good decision was having at least a few supplies in the car, and a nearly full tank of gas. Some of the things were thrown in my car this fall, on the off chance that I would be in exactly this situation. As I mentioned, I have a sleeping bag. I also have a few spare winter clothes, a couple of old blankets, and a little bit of food. As far as my “survival food”, I have a few bags of candy and a couple of packets of hot chocolate, and a few miscellaneous items that I haphazardly threw into an old coffee can.
Fortunately, I have a nearly full tank of gas. I estimate that I have about twelve gallons of gas, and I estimate that I can probably run the engine for about twelve hours before I run out, so that I have some heat, and I can run the engine enough to keep the battery charged to listen to the radio and have some light.
I have a cell phone with me, along with a car charger. But unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any signal here, so it doesn’t do me much good, other than serving as an additional flashlight.
I also have some additional food with me. Since I’m used to living in motel rooms, I’m used to using the microwave oven to cook myself something to eat, and I have several meals with me. I have a box of cereal, several dehydrated meals of ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, and the like, a box of crackers, a box of cookies, and even a few cans of soup and tuna salad. I had a hamburger from a fast-food place in the car with me last night, and that was my supper after getting stuck.
I have a few cans of soda, a thermos full of coffee, and even a can of instant coffee. Other than one little bottle, I don’t have any water with me, but I’m surrounded by all the water I need, in the form of clean snow, and it keeps coming.
Other than the car engine, I don’t have any means of making heat or cooking. Most of the food I have with me is supposed to be cooked in a microwave, which obviously I don’t have. But as long as I can figure out a way to boil water, I should be able to prepare it with little difficulty.
I have plenty of time on my hands, and plenty of paper, so I may as well pass the time by writing this journal. Cooking food, melting snow, and keeping myself warm will give me something to do. But I’ll probably have a lot of time on my hands for the next few days, so I may as well write down my experiences.
The snow is still blowing outside, so I really don’t want to get out of the car yet. And besides, one missing element was a pair of boots. I really don’t have anything suitable for walking in the snow, and I don’t want to make matters worse by getting my feet wet. According to the radio, the conditions should improve this afternoon. I’ll still be stuck in the snow, but at least I’ll be able to move around a little bit. In the meantime, I’ll have some cereal, and the coffee in my thermos is at least still warm.
Saturday morning, 10:00.
I haven’t been outside yet, but according to the car thermometer, it’s warmed up just a bit, and the temperature outside is about 11 degrees. I’ve been running the car for about ten minutes every hour. It’s not exactly comfortable inside, but huddled in my sleeping bag, I’m relatively warm. According to the radio, the wind and snow should mostly stop in a couple of hours, and then I can look around outside and assess the situation.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure exactly where I am, other than knowing what county road I was on. I can probably pinpoint my location within a couple of miles, but I’m still not exactly sure where I am. The closest town appears to be about five miles away, so the idea of walking there is out of the question. I think I saw some farm houses last night, but I’m really not sure how far away. I suspect it’s at least a couple of miles.
This morning, I’ve been playing over in my head how I got here. I had left the interstate, and was going to take a shortcut using some state highways. If all had gone well, it would have cut at least an hour out of my 400 mile trip home. But two of those state highways were connected only by a county road, over which I had to travel about seven miles. Looking at the map this morning, about halfway along that county road, the road makes a 90 degree angle. Unfortunately, I don’t remember making that turn. I suspect that when I got to that turn, with limited visibility, I didn’t notice that the main road had turned. Instead, there was probably a smaller road, either a township road, or just someone’s private driveway, that continued to the east where I was traveling. So I probably kept driving down a road that’s not even on the map, and it’s hard to say how far I continued.
There had been very little snow on the road when I started, especially on the county road, which must have been plowed at some point. Unfortunately, this road might not be plowed at all during winter. I was only able to continue down it because there were only a few inches of snow to start with. But as I continued, the snow kept getting deeper and deeper, until I finally came to a stop in a snow bank on which the car bottomed out. I was going downhill at the time, so trying to back out is probably out the question.
So there’s the distinct possibility that even after they plow the roads, this little road or driveway that I’m sitting on won’t see any human contact for quite a while. Maybe I’ll just need to sit here until someone comes looking for me. And chances are, nobody will even think to start looking until I fail to show up for work on Tuesday morning, since Monday is a holiday.
I will need to get out of the car later today, and I am concerned about not having any boots. I have a few extra pairs of socks, but I don’t have any extra shoes, and I don’t want to make matters worse by getting my feet wet. So I’m going to make myself something to
protect my feet. I do have some old blankets, and I’ll cut one of them up into pieces that will cover my feet. In my tool kit, I have a utility knife. And I have some extension cords that I can cut up, and use the individual wires inside for laces. So when the weather clears, at least I can walk around a little bit outside without worrying too much of getting my feet wet.
Saturday afternoon, 1:00.
As the radio had predicted, the storm did subside. There is still a light snow coming down, but the wind is mostly calm. The temperature outside is 15 degrees. I did manage to make myself a pair of “boots”, but they look like something that George Washington’s soldiers wore at Valley Forge. I put some plastic grocery bags over them to make them somewhat waterproof. They’re
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