A fairly stressful drive today. After the severe Winter storm last night, the surrounding countryside was feet deep in snow. Many of the eastern airports like Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland and Buffalo had all been closed, and flights cancelled or diverted. The roads appeared to be open this morning, even though it was still snowing, but your ability to move depended on when the last snow plough had come past. Unfortunately the hotel carpark was at the bottom of a rather steep and windy driveway, and we watched several cars get only half way up before sliding ignominiously half way back down to get stuck in the snow on the side of a bend in the drive. The hotel called for a snowplough which took a running jump at the hill and managed to get up, so I figured that with a Jeep I had a fighting chance, and tore off up the hill after him before anybody else could get stuck. Luckily we managed it. The news was joking that the storm had ploughed millions into the economy, principally to snow plough operators which every business and town has to pay to clear their snow.
Took the slushy and slippery roads back into Cooperstown where we had planned on exploring the town before we moved on. However, only one shop in the entire town appeared to be open, and everything was covered in deep snow. We did manage to get to Doubleday Field, a fairly famous field for junior baseball teams to play on, but we had to wade through knee deep snow to get to the gate, and of course it was chained shut. In the end we gave up, and headed home in the expectation of a very long, slow day on the road.
Certainly the minor roads back to the Interstate were slow and slippery, but after an hour we got back to the Interstate to find that it wasn't actually that bad. The snow ploughs had been busy, and word hadn't got through that the Interstate was open, so traffic was light. Quite surprised, we made reasonable progress, making extra stops to de-stress, and arrived back safely in Buffalo about 3pm.
A quick visit to Home Depot to get some supplies for the apartment, then off to pick up Dan and Bec whose flight from Chicago had been cancelled, and had instead flown to Toronto. They had then spent the day on a bus from Toronto, and we picked them up at the Niagara Falls border. Back to pick up suits, and lastly to Carrabba's for dinner. Carrabba's is where Rachel and Sarah work, so we wanted to visit it. All the Aussie crew came, Mike and Lynne joined us, and the girls came over when they finished their shifts.
Finally dropped people and luggage off at the Caputi's, and headed back to our motel to crash after a long day.
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