The silent sentry deceptively contrasts against the cold winter sky.
A Minnesota winter is both a threat and a reward.
“The beast is loose and kills tonight…”
Two popular songs portray winter with contrary emotions. The Russian band, Krokus, leads into terror: Russian winter, broken hearts/Cold winds in the dark/The beast is loose and kills tonight/Full moon burning bright. Run for your life/Run for your life/Run for your life/Run for your life. The much-overused “Jingle Bells” invites a joyful sleigh ride to a family dinner. I have combined touches of both themes in describing my 200 mile car ride home in the depths of a Minnesota winter.
December 2007: one of the worst Minnesota winter storms with gales and snowfalls of more than 20 inches. As my daughter, Ariel, and I drove in our Subaru to our northern Minnesota home 200 miles to the north, we faced weather warnings that should have convinced us to cancel the trip. The drive was scripted out of a Hogwarts initiation rite of passage for the apprentice wizards. We were leaving St. Paul headed toward a foreign, challenging world.
That day there were nearly a thousand reported accidents and a dozen plus deaths statewide. We saw cars stranded, crashed, rolled over with tires trying to find traction in the air above. Ambulances roamed around us with sirens moaning like cows lost in the snowbanks. The winter’s peculiar optics engaged us with snow tornados, sending their white forms without shadows at our windshield. Driving into the night, the winds exceeded 50 miles per hour which propelled our car into a vicious world of mysterious energy.
Large bulwarks of snow appeared on the road like icy crocodiles whose noses pushed out from the edges of the fields. We had to swerve to miss the sepulcher bodies or we would have flipped into the ditch. These snow amphibians blew across the road with a fantastical sense of power and threat.
Our vision stretched outward to fields covered with ribbons of fog and clumps of blowing snow.
Agitated trees stood like camouflaged soldiers in a white swamp. The trunks were invisible; just the swaying tops of the trees were visible. It looked like lower limbs and tops of trees were moving toward us in the pockets of the storm. I felt as if I was in Elsinore at the overture of a tragedy. Would we get out of here alive?
The skidding traffic magnified the threats to our lives.
Vehicles would come up quickly behind us with their blinding lights, then hit the brakes, and suddenly dovetail across the road to pass. In the most frightening case, a snowmobile headed directly toward us with a shaking light that obscured my vision. Because of the snow flurries, I could only make out a bright object that frightened me with its apocalyptic threatening eye heading toward our car. The light suddenly swerved into the far lane. Startled, I braked and he stopped his threatening snow machine. He paused to stare at me. Then we passed by each other in the night.
My daughter and I arrived safely, though exhausted, at our home. It is just three hours away from the Cities at regular speeds. It took over six hours to reach our destination. Anna, wife and mother, was predictably relieved to see us appear out of the dark.
The next day was the total Minnesota weather denial that there had been any storm the night before. The sun rose in a clear sky and snow covered the ground like a well-made bed. Lack of any wind gave us the opportunity to fly in a Cessna Cherokee 4-seater over a fairytale landscape. Now we know what it means to enter rapture after the storm!
My daughter and I modified the popular song by Joni Mitchell to end our journey:
“We’ve looked at snow from both sides now, From up and down and still somehow
It’s snow’s illusions, we recall. We really don’t know snow at all.”
“Oh, what fun it is to ride….”
In Minnesota, winter is both a threat and a reward.
Richard C. Kagan
Loved your imagery. Wonderful look back on what could have been a very different ending.
You describe driving through that perilous blizzard with such astonishing imagery that I felt the terror as if I were with you, my heart racing too.
“Sepulcher bodies”, “in Elsinor at the overture of a tragedy”, “icy crocodiles” – all fantastic images that give us a great sense of lyrical foreboding. So happy that you and your daughter arrived safely and the next day was clear so you could fly overhead and enjoy the gorgeous view.
Wow, that was one frightening trip! I was cringing as I read it. So glad you made it to the northern home without mishap–it could have been you in the ditch! It reminded me of a few terrifying winter driving episodes I have had, but even worse. We have come to use weather apps a lot and make more of an effort to avoid storms as we have gotten older and (I think) wiser. If you could have left the next day, maybe all that could have been avoided. Next time…..
Thanks for your comment. Your recommendation for using an app. is right on. Except I wrote that piece in 2008. In those days , the tech world had not reached me. I had learned to ski without poles, sat in front of a black and white TV, and read books with real covers and pages. My daughter and her husband are professional techies. But I am not a quick learner no matter how much they repeat themselves before going to the kitchen to drink beer and gin and tonics.
If I would have avoided it, there would not have been a story. Though I am not at all at the same level, one cold ask Homer if he could have avoided the Trojan wars. lolz
Wonderful story Richard!
I’ve visited friends in St. Paul but it didn’t snow and we never made it out of the Cities. Too bad, sounds quite beautiful country despite your scary car trip!
Wonderful use of imagery and description! I was immersed.
Every winter we drive between Chicago and NJ on I-80; the weather south of Lake Erie is often intense. We’ve had miles of whiteout, or zero-visibility fog, or a cover of ice that would just periodically try to slide us off the road; corrections had to be made with a fingertip to remain going in a semi-straight line. So this story spoke to me!
I enjoyed reading your vivid description of the storm and travel home. Great imagery. I could really picture your experience.
Whew! Your driving descriptions through that storm had me so on edge I felt I was in the back seat wondering why the hell were we in this? But obviously it was a journey you were obligated to take. It made me make a vow to never travel through a snow storm. Although I loved the ride on the Cessna Cherokee 4-seater and the Joni Mitchell tribute to snow.
A very effective piece of writing, if you wanted to convince your audience that, next time you’re starting to drive into gale force winds combined with driving snow: DON’T! The happy and peaceful ending were fine but a bit fairy-tale like, and insufficient to turn me away from the main insight.
On a side note, have you read WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick? I think his protagonist comes from northern Minnesota and there are some descriptions of storms that you brought back to mind.