On Dec. 26, Blue Toes, Moira and I drove through Buffalo. In retrospect, we were very lucky.
We got home yesterday from a sojourn down in Pennsylvania, visiting BT's mother and brother, and celebrating her mom's 90th birthday on the 24th, plus Christmas. We started home on the 26th, and since we had no internet, no TV, basically no news where we were staying, had no idea of the effects on the snow bomb on Buffalo, not to mention our house. As we got closer to NY state, we learned that the I-90 was closed from the NY state border to Rochester, NY due to some dangerous person on the loose. The suggestion to take I 86 was not helpful. The whole dangerous person thing seemed odd but we detoured off onto secondary highways. No mention on 511.com alerts of snow-related closures. As we got closer to Buffalo via Hwy 20, the piles of snow got higher and higher. Finally found a local news radio station and learned that we were driving into a post-snowpocalyptic wasteland, where the total driving ban was being lifted at 7 pm, just when we were rolling into town. We navigated through south Buffalo (on South Park Ave, if you know the city) toward the Peace Bridge and Canada via GPS in the car, cell phone mapping, iPhone compass and a good old road atlas. Got stuck once but shoveled our way out. The amount of snow was incredible, cars, trucks abandoned everywhere. Side streets were a no-go. Navigating was complicated by the fact that street signs were plastered with snow. We did see the Tesla factory, who even knew it was there! Finally accessed the Interstate not far from the bridge (Hamburg St.) and were pleased to find it open and snow-free. Car-free too, adding to the post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Flashing signs informed us that the bridge was closed but we took the exit anyway to see what we could see ("Unquestioning obedience is the law of tyrants and slaves" - Lord Coke). Fully expecting to be turned around, we saw the green light beckoning us across and the parked gang of state police cars did not pursue us as we headed over to Canada. The border guard was happy to see us and listened to our story bemusedly. We stayed at a friend's place in southern Ontario then headed up to the Hinterlands the next morning, knowing that our power had been out since the 24th, just come on that morning, and that we could expect a tonne of snow in the driveway. Fortunately, our friendly neighbour had run his tractor up the drive and cleared the worst of it. Power went off again, and finally came on again this afternoon.
