Dead of Winter (Part III: Conclusion)

Well, anyway. I trust you've read Parts One and Two of my bathetic tale of Winter travel. "When it rains it pours," goes the old expression, meaning when things go wrong, things keep on going wrong, or get worse.

Get worse it did, my Monday. In Detroit, it was sunny and clear—but they'd been inundated with snow. The outer taxiing lane hadn't yet been cleared, so for a while our plane roamed the gates like the Mayflower roaming the coast of New England, forlornly seeking a port. At one point we came nose-to-nose with another jet and had to do a 180 and trundle away. Jets don't do 180s; we had to wait for that little tugboat cart, whatever those are called, to pull our nose around.

Then when we arrived at the gate, it turned out that many of the airport employees had been prevented by the storm from coming to work, and we had no ground crew; another long wait for our turn. (Those guys must have been overworked. And another hackneyed expression momentarily took on vivid life: "so close and yet so far.") Once we did get to the gate, the lights were off in the ramp and we had to exit the plane in the dark.

But I eventually made it to the gate for the backup flight (where there was a large, milling crowd), confirmed my seat (the crowd was restless), and texted S. to tell her that I was at the gate an hour early, and my troubles were over, and all was well. And while I was poking out that text, letter by painstaking letter (my fingers are too big for the iPhone 4S), the announcement came that my second flight was delayed by an hour.

As you might expect, that hour, too, turned out to be considerably longer than 60 minutes.

So finally I got to Milwaukee about 11 hours after leaving S.'s beautiful cozy house and her warm embrace. At baggage claim, my formerly new suitcase was comically battered—covered almost artistically with new scuffs, as if a set designer had done it for a movie—and the nametag—not a homemade affair, but store bought—was ripped half off and broken. The bored luggage porter had no clue how to get from baggage claim to long-term parking. It was dark by then, and it was about six degrees Fahrenheit, yet somehow it was not a dry cold. It was a bone-chillingly wet cold. I was starting to get tired by then. I trudged out to the car thinking okay, done. Good. I really have had enough now. I'm really glad this is finally over. Found the car without incident.

What could go wrong from there? Nothing, right? I was home.

...Wrong! The car, which was rimed with road salt, was stone dead! It would not blink or beep at me in greeting. The cold had stilled its willing electronical heart. And of course all the locks are electronic. The driver's door has a keyed backup but nothing else does. Standing there deep in a dimly-lit parking garage that was colder than a meat locker, wondering what to do next, I couldn't even get my battered suitcase into the trunk.

At that point, I really did start to get discouraged.

This story has already gone on too long, and I'm hoping you're feeling a mixture of sympathy along with a modicum of merry schadenfreude as well, because there really was something deeply comical about my day. Ya have to laugh. Remember that old episode of "Seinfeld" in which Jerry and Elaine are taking a airline flight? Jerry gets moved up to first class, where he leads a lovely charmed existence sipping champagne with a supermodel, while Elaine suffers the comically exaggerated slings and arrows of discomfort and frustration back in coach. My two trips were like that.

If you've ever been in a long-distance relationship, you know what it's like, and if not, then you've heard about it. The stories are true. There's genuine misery built into the situation. The two of you just want to be together, and it's painful when you can't be. I'm not superstitious, and I only believe in Karma in a half tongue-in-cheek, "My Name is Earl" kind of way. But I've decided that the two legs of this journey constitute a message from the Universe. When I'm headed toward my beloved S., all is sweetness and light, anticipation, and smooth sailing; everything is lifted on the effortless breeze of happiness and goodwill; everyone has a smile for me. And when I'm leaving her again, suddenly the world transforms into something dysfunctional and dark, worrisome, brooding, lonely, dangerous, difficult—a chaos of bungles and impediments and SNAFUs, troubles and toil. I get it, Karma (says Earl). Message received.

My trip dramatized the quintessence of the long-distance relationship, in two acts.

It took only an hour to get the car started, because (thanks, Karma!) I discovered I had Acura Roadside Assistance. Once the grubby work had been done and the car was running again, I was told I should drive for twenty minutes to recharge the battery before shutting off the car again. So I drove to my favorite restaurant, which, it turned out, was exactly twenty minutes from the airport. Did I mention that I was already too late to pick up the dogs, and had to pay for an extra day for both of them? Did I mention that the long-term parking, which I'd decided on so I could get to that doctor's appointment, cost $247? Did I mention I'll have to pay for the doctor's appointment even though I missed it? Surely I mentioned that it was snowing and the roads were hazardous?

Well, I probably don't need to tell you this, but the car wouldn't start again at the restaurant. Strained gurgling noises and pained flashing lights...not to mention my sinking heart. I was fully into fatalistic mode by that point, however. The hour it took the second "Roadside Rescue" truck to arrive was not too much longer than 60 minutes either, which I took as a positive. I have to give Acura good marks for their Roadside Assistance program. Which, I promise, I will never take for granted again.

A day of inconvenience is not a truly bad day, not compared to real misfortune. I do see the humor in all this. I arrived home just about exactly 15 hours after leaving for the airport that morning, after a net total of only a little more than two hours in the air. And then I had to drag myself out for a meaningless 45-minute drive around the countryside, because I wanted to make good and sure, this time, that the battery'd had enough time to recharge. (I do have a trickle charger, but, having just moved, I have no idea where it is.) Yes, it was snowing. Of course conditions were poor. But I relaxed into the drive and actually enjoyed it, despite the slippery conditions...I know the roads around here, and the manual in that car is better than a BMW's, I swear. Returned home, took a very hot bath, and—at last!—collapsed into my bed. Ahhh.

Before I leave this story I have to show you something. This is just a record snapshot, not a photograph—I was not able to make a photograph of it*—but the edge of the storm out over Lake Michigan was just astonishingly, fantastically beautiful to behold. You can only get the merest sense of it from this:

As we reached the edge of the cloud cover the sun itself was blocked from view by the heavier, higher clouds, and the intense golden sunlight emerged from below, reflected off the Lake. For five minutes the view changed with every few seconds we traveled. It was otherworldly; it hardly seemed like the planet I know, but like some other planet or some science-fiction Shangri-La. I didn't make much of an effort to look at it through the camera—I just watched it, wonderingly. A sight to behold. 

And that brings to mind yet another hackneyed old cliché—a hopeful one this time, about silver linings.

Mike
(Thanks to S. for a lovely visit, and no, I do not blame her for the trip home.)

*We were speaking about Fraenkel Gallery books the other day, in the "Plot Thickens" post—one of their books I have, a very elegant production filled with highly enigmatic photographs, is called The Unphotographable.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark: "This is the reason I won't have a long distance relationship. Well…that and the fact that my wife won't let me."

Mike replies: You laugh (I did too), but actually one of the problems of LDR's is that they "read" emotionally like affairs—intermittent periods of pleasure punctuated by longer spells of distance and detachment. It takes longer to get over the infatuation period, longer till you get to that important "first fight," and longer to settle in and learn what it's going to be like to be together long-term. All of which tends to prolong rather than shorten the inherently unstable, intermittently painful LD situation. (All this is according to a psychoanalyst friend, not just me...I'm no expert myself.)

Steve Rosenblum (partial comment): "You don't get one drop of sympathy from me about your travel saga—you are most obviously in love! The other stuff is just trivial background noise in comparison. Love can get you through a whole lot of plane delays. Congratulations!"

Mike replies: Actually, I'd go through the same thing every trip, both ways, if the reward were two weeks with S.

David Lee: "Note taken Mike. I am a pilot and I promise I will never start a PA with those words....

"Type I fluid is de-icing and type IV is anti-icing. It shouldn't take that long because as soon as the anti-icing process starts, countdown for takeoff also starts. Depending on the conditions, we have a short time before ice and or snow starts accumulating again. Once airborne, the aircraft anti-ice takes care. 

"I fly for a living and I love it, but the mindset to do photography is exactly the opposite of the mindset for flying. Sometimes is difficult for me to leave the the room in a layover and start thinking as a photographer again. Hard to explain, but as a photographer I like to be on a passive mode, just walking without an established route and not thinking about what comes next, just looking."

Mike replies: Thanks David. I'll change the term in Part II. Seems to me we did take off very soon after the green coating (type IV anti-icing) was applied.

Kathy: "I think it was the oxymoron, "beautiful southern tier", that that tipped me off that it was love. Eventually you'll be taking the one-way trip to Niagara Falls after which, if Mark Twain is right, you get to settle down in North Tonawanda to raise a family. Welcome to New York. You could do worse."

R. Edelman: "Glad you got back safe and sound. I am sure you understand why doctors charge for missed visits. It is not just the lost income, but the loss in fixed overhead. My office also has a policy to charge for 'no shows,' but it is not for the full amount of the visit. And the fee is waived if the patient is a long-standing and reliable member of the practice, or if there is a good reason, such as a hospital admission, family emergency, vehicle broke down, and even travel delays. Calling ahead to cancel is always a good idea if this can be anticipated and if it is possible to do so. The policy is there to keep 'no show' abuse to a minimum, not to punish loyal patients. So I would ask your doctor for a reprieve on the 'no show' visit, or at least a discount. After all, we have all been there, and we like to get, and give, a break when possible."

Earl Dunbar: "Hello Mike. My name is Earl. Really.

"I'll leave the karma discussion for later, one hopes in person.

"I know it's terribly, horribly unfair, but being in close proximity the Finger Lakes, on Monday I simply stayed put and worked from home via VPN, as did my wife. We had les chats et les chiens to keep us company and I was able to make that extra steaming mug of Lapsang Souchong, sourced from Tea Source. (A hat tip to Ctein for turning me on to Tea Source—what a treasure!)

"Funnily enough, I once had a long distance (OK, relatively short distance,) relationship with a lovely woman near Ithaca, and even though the visit intervals were five days, it seemed longer.

"I do recall the 1977 blizzard, and a follow-on nor'easter in January of '78. Traveling from Wallaceburg, ON to the US Midwest, I saw cars spin out in front of me on I-94 in Michigan. Not nearly as harrowing as your travels through Ohio, but the images remain. I now make sure I always drive an AWD vehicle and have Honda Care."

Pritam Singh: "You've written an enjoyable read, tribulations notwithstanding, thank you."

Mike replies: You're welcome, and I'm glad to hear it. I never know if people will enjoy these longer first-person essays or not...my basic idea about them is that one every now and then can't hurt.

Comments

[Speed]

Did I ever tell you about the time I flew to ... ?

Oh, nevermind.

[Mike R]

Mike,
So, that mid-life relationship you opened the first episode with: I gotta agree with you. Maybe it's because by then sanity prevails, and one can fully appreciate the person and the moment. (I am convinced that the impulse to fall madly in love and to have children is a temporary mental affliction that Nature has imposed upon the young in order to avoid our species going extinct.)

I'm not so sure that your recall of the Blazer catastrophe is the only factor at work on your psyche. I had no such experience, yet as I get older (73 in a few weeks), I have gotten much more risk-averse. Perhaps it's the realization that, buddy, there ain't that many good years left. So, don't do stuff that will mess them up.

I'm curious about the Finger Lakes region in mid-winter. Last summer, at Keuka Lake, I stared at one particular house on the lake, and wondered what it would be like to vacation there in the snowy season, rather than in July or August. My imagination suggests a roller coaster of gloomy leaden days alternating with spectacularly bright and beautiful ones. What was your experience? (If you ventured out at all, that is. Roaring fireplace, wine, and your SO - why go out?)

[Mike, S. tells me that the downside of winters in the Finger Lakes is unrelieved, unremitting grayness. I wasn't there long enough for that to be oppressive (and I do think we had a few sunny or partly sunny days), but she says it gets old. --Mike]

[Peter Wright]

Welcome back! Hope you are fully re-combobulated by now, however reading between the lines it sounds like the diabolical return journey was a small price to pay for your time away.

O.T. After reading your recommendation for David Bailey's East End, I decided to purchase a copy. It arrived yesterday from Amazon, and I am very happy. The reproductions are first rate, the subject matter is fascinating, and Bailey's ability to see the unusual in the commonplace if amazing. I was a bit put off making the purchase as you said that the books were paper back. In fact the three (large) books are hard backs. They do come in a slip case. The physical package is very pleasing.

[Steve Rosenblum]

In regard to long distance relationships, I have always heard that "absence makes the heart grow fonder", but I think it is more likely abstinence. =)

Also, you don't get one drop of sympathy from me about your travel saga--you are most obviously in love! The other stuff is just trivial background noise in comparison. Love can get you through a whole lot of plane delays. Congratulations!

[Paul M]

I waited patiently to comment on Part 1. Normally I wouldn't bother but believe this is germane. For more than 6 decades I was essentially unflappable, but recently I've become anxious (physically noticeable) about winter storms and mentioned this just the other day to my spouse. So the return of your anxiety about the accident isn't strange, at least not to me.
As for texting, you really should learn to use the speech to text option. It's absolutely liberating and SO much faster.

[To your last point Paul, I do use it, all the time, and I agree with you, but of course there are limitations when you're surrounded by strangers and wish to communicate privately.... --Mike]

[Speed]

When learning to drift in a snowy parking lot I got cocky and the car spun out. Whoosh. Whump. Up to that moment I thought I was a master of the automotive universe. Formula One material. In the seconds following I was the passenger in a car with no driver.

A valuable lesson long remembered.

[Moose]

So glad you made it back intact.

Just for fun.

A little sloppy, quick and dirty on a small original. I hope you get the idea.

[Yvonne]

Thank you for the multi-episode story. As for the finale, I guessed only too well what was coming. (I live in the frozen north too.)

I dread flying and I'm supposed to get on a plane on Saturday: another snow day. I may bite the bullet and pay an exorbitant fee to change my flight to the day before, which is not a snow day.

Happy for you that you have found your SO.

[steven Ralser]

How can you be discombobulated - didn't you go through a recombobulation zone? - or wait, I think I may have only seen that at the Milwaukee airport., and you were going the other way. FYI - Milwaukee airport has a service for starting dead cars; we've had to use it on our practically brand new, at the time, Subaru.

[Chuck Albertson]

Thanks for Part II. It reminded me why I avoid Midwest airports in the winter. Back in the day, when a particular case had me flying to the East Coast at least once a week and connecting through MSP/ORD/DTW, I carried a small sleeping bag in the expectation that an airport closure/bung-up would strand me. Cf http://www.sleepinginairports.net .

[Franko]

Sorry for your travel woes - pilot to passenger, but one of my best winter memories happened in Finger Lakes country. In 1973, with two feet of snow on the ground, a friend and I hiked into Taughannock Falls by Cayuga Lake, me carrying a 120 slr, tripod, two lenses and film to photograph the tons of ice surrounding the falls. I still look at those photos often with nary a though of the wet socks, jeans and boots and frozen face. And yes, my car did start when finished. It's a good thing because the whole area was totally deserted with no road service to call - if we'd had a phone.

Hang in there, she's worth it.

[Wesley]

I, too, have roadside assistance, but, thanks to the time in sometimes takes for help, I now only use if for troubles I can't remedy myself. To jump start my car, the wife and I now carry one of these in our cars:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KIXSXWQ/

I was skeptical of its strength due to it being in such a small package, but it easily started my convertible which sat for 2 winter months in the cool garage without a single start. It's an impressive little device and, in my opinion, money well spent. Just don't put it in your trunk.

[Chuck Albertson]

...and book me on David Lee's flights any time! I like his attitude, as opposed to this guy's: http://abcnews.go.com/US/selfies-caused-colorado-plane-crash-ntsb/story?id=28688703

Handy practice tip: No selfies while flying an instrument departure.

[Dave]

Loved reading this story Mike -- all three parts. As a 15 year airline pilot it's helpful to hear what it's like for passengers during challenging weather events. Thanks for being patient through all your troubles. I'll try not to say "and the plot thickens" over the PA ever again.

About long distance relationships and travel...

The travel gets easier. Don't rush anything. For two years, I commuted from Milwaukee to New York City once a week for work. The first couple of trips were terrible (including one episode of pulling my suitcase from Hampton and 24th Street all the way to 76th at midnight on a Friday in February). As time wore on and I gained experience, the commute got easier. Soon, I found a rhythm and was able to turn the travel time into productive time, editing photos and writing on the plane or while waiting in the terminal. Give it time and you'll develop some travel callouses. It'll get comfortable. You might even enjoy this new lifestyle or at least find fodder for a photo project.

In my life, I've had two long distance relationships. The toughest parts were avoiding resentment brought on by the hardships of travel, and also choosing who would eventually move. I never made it past that second issue. You seem to have a leg up in that department with a job/business that is completely mobile. Best of luck.

[Eric Rose]

So all this high adventure aside, is S in to photography?

[Chuck Holst]

Congratulations on the new love. My wife was 47 and I was 50 when we married 20 years ago after a brief courtship. By that age most people have enough experience to know when they have found a keeper. It was my second marriage and my wife's first. A friend of my wife said it gave her new hope. ;-)

[Ken Rahaim]

"I didn't make much of an effort to look at it through the camera—I just watched it, wonderingly. A sight to behold."

Good for you! Some of my friends, and my girlfriend especially, wonder why I don't sometimes photograph when I'm on vacation or when something extraordinary is happening. It's because I want to experience, absorb and enjoy it fully and undistracted. I want it to become an emotional memory.

It's not that I can't have this type of feeling when photographing as well; it's just different. It's a photography biased memory (and all that goes along with the challenge of composing and exposing a good photograph).

[Robert Roaldi]

Trains are such a nice way to travel, and we let them go to seed. We are nuts.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

When my "beloved" catches me whining she displays a particularly annoying signal gesture. She lightly rubs a thumb against the side of her index finger. It's her "finger violin".

[LR Jasper]

I feel your pain. Some days your get the bear, some days the bear gets you :-)

If your going to travel via air on a regular basis then you're going to need some tools.

Check this web site out:

http://flyingwithfish.boardingarea.com

best,
oldbro

[Robert]

When I was travelling a lot and leaving my car in the long term, I seem to remember that they all had a portable battery booster as this type of incident was not unusual.

[Roger Bradbury]

I suggest that you check your car battery, if you haven't already. That is, see if the car will readily start after it has been left for a couple of days. The battery may have already been on its way out when you parked the car, but either way it has taken a beating. It is best to check now, rather than find out when you next need the car.

[D. Hufford.]

This is why I don't get back to the US very often. The flight from Tokyo to Seattle alone is apx 11 hours, and I am just getting started. By the time I get back to my very rural West Virginia hometown, nearly 24 hours have passed. If everything goes well.

But I'd do it more if my girlfriend were there. I just began a new relationship last March with a woman who lives about an hour from me in northern Tokyo. I shared what you wrote with my her:

"....joys of mid-life relationships. Best I've ever had; I am so surprised at finding such happiness at this late stage, when I was well and truly past the expectation of it, that I just seem to cherish and enjoy every minute. The depth and richness of this mid-life happiness is the best gift that my life on the surface of this little green and blue globe has given me so far. If you're middle-aged and lonely, keep trying, is my advice. The rewards can be beyond your imaginings...."

Although she has some trouble with English (we often speak an odd mix of Japanese and English each other), she understood it and replied:

"I can understand the feeling of what does he would like to say and you also. I am also have same feelings. Our language is different but sensibility is similar."

So you are speaking for a lot of folks in their 40s and over. This is one area that seems to improve with age.

[David Zalaznik]

I take Amtrak to the Finger Lakes every couple of years from central Illinois to Syracuse via Chicago. About the same amount of time as you spent on your travels except its spent reading, napping, dining, etc. with great legroom and round trip costs less than your parking. Worth investigating. Only issue now is increased freight traffic from petroleum transport has been causing delays. Walk back and get another coffee or beer.

[Dan Gorman]

Forty seemed too fast on the highway...except to the idiots whizzing by . . .

Per Seinfeld, there are three types of drivers: me (perfect in every way); morons (those driving slower than me); and maniacs (those driving faster than me).

Somehow, as I've aged, there seem to be a lot more maniacs in the world and fewer morons. Oh, and driving is a lot less stressful.

May your LDR become an LLR (long-lived)!

Cheers,
Dan

[Roger Bradbury]

Having dispensed the above advice I went out to the car to find that I'd left the lights on and the battery was flat. I was very lucky, and after a couple of grinding 'uhuh' sounds it started. This is what comes from relying on the opening of the car door to alert me to the lights being on. G@rr@£, be%@ium, Ford Fiesta door light switches!

On, er, a brighter note, your excellent reason for travelling encourages this 56 year old not to give up hope just yet.

[Jim Roelofs]

Mike, loneliness can be like a cancer, so it's a pleasure to read that things are looking up in your world (and S's). Best wishes for the future.

[Ravi B]

So Mike. I did the exact opposite. We were probably in different terminals of Chicago O Hare at the same time.

I had to drive from Brookfield to O Hare airport. I left before noon and was one of those idiots who drove 30m behind a truck who drove at 50mph all the way on the highway. No problem. Except one. I needed a bathroom break but saw many cars had left the truck tracks and rammed into a pile of snow and got stuck. As i didnt want to risk that, i didnt try to get off at a service station and just held my legs tight.

I arrived after 3 at the airport, drove into rental returns and said "fill her up yourselves but tell me where the restroom is" :) All this time, my incoming flight showed on time and outgoing flight on schedule.

Long story short, my plane left the airport at 220am instead of 510pm. A long uneventful, boring time. We got on and off one plane as the long runway was closed and the 747 couldnt use the short runway as wind was wrong. The next incoming BA flight had to wait over 4 hours for a gate to dock at. Eventually I got home 12 hours later than scheduled.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I just had this same double roadside assistance experience myself (from Nissan in my case) last night here in Honolulu, and I'm going to have to call them again this morning to get my car to the dealer to see what's up. The battery is only 2-3 years old, so I suppose that we may conclude that either cold weather or warm weather may bring about low battery life. Or perhaps it is the combination of cold weather in New York, where it spent the first two thirds of its present life, and warm weather in Hawai'i, where it now resides, and somewhere in the mid-southern-midwest, perhaps Lebanon, Kansas, which is near the geographic center of the 48 contiguous United States, there is an environmental utopia where car batteries last for at least five years.

[Dave Schwarz]

Mike -

Perhaps the only avoidable element of your star-crossed return from New York was the $247 parking bill. Numerous low-cost parking options have sprung up to serve the needs of long-term parking at Mitchell Field. Here's but one: http://www.wallypark.com/milwaukee/

Cheers and best wishes-
Dave