Following a 24 hour long trip to DC, in 105 degree weather, Kate and I were happily venturing home to Pittsburgh, to soak our tired feet, and scrub the sweat off of our dirty bods. It was probably not a very good smelling vehicle that we were in...
...it was a beautiful day! We stopped (momentarily) at Eastern Market, this amazing little art/farmers market just off Pennsylvania Ave, and were on our way home, when the sky (within to minutes... no lie) changed colors. I distinctly remember saying "wow... wasn't it sunny and blue skies two minutes ago?" Pictures were taken.
When we left DC, we had just under 1/4 tank of gas. We decided, mutually, to wait until we were out of the city, since gas was $2.99/gallon in the city, and we were fairly certain that it could be purchased for $2.69/gallon outside of the city. We ended up getting off the Rockville exit, which promised about 1/2 dozen gas stations just off the exit.
It was odd getting off the exit... for some reason, all of the traffic lights were out. What kind of town has all of their traffic lights out of order?
As we continued to follow the GPS towards the closest gas station, in the upper left corner of my vision, a TREE catches fire... or maybe it was a telephone pole... but from what I can remember/see in the picture, it was a tree. The next minute was spent (seriously) dodging tree limbs, trying to see out the window as the sky began to fall, and at one point, asked Kate "is the car on fire? No, seriously, IS THE CAR ON FIRE?" (Luckily, it was not, and the torrential downpour started seconds later, which would have likely stopped any fire anyways).
With no option but to continue driving, as we had NO idea where we were, and STILL desperately needed gas (by the time we got off the exit, the gas light came on), Kate and I SLOWLY drove through flooded streets, with next to zero visibility. Lightning to our left and right...
I ended up calling Joe, to see if he'd check the radar for me. I had no idea how long this storm planned to last. Luckily, his response was "I'm probably not the best person to be reading this radar, and telling you what it means... but it looks like you've survived the worst of it, and within the next hour, it'll be completely over..."
...within the next 10-15 minutes, the rain stopped completely. Only problem... there was no electricity in Rockville. No electricity= no working gas pumps.
Kate and I decided to find the first place with electricity and food, and grab something to eat and wait out the "no electricity" situation. Following food, and a call to Kate's fiance (who looked up gas stations and called each one until he found one in Rockville that had working gas) we were on our way to the gas station to wait in the long line of cars (who knew there were THAT MANY people desperately in need of gas) and were then on our way.
Just like that (well, three hours of waiting later) the sky looked clear again, and the roads were dry...
I got home shortly before 10:00pm that evening... sure would have been nice to have gotten home by 6:30pm, as initially hoped.
You girls had quite an experience and very lucky. Driving is heavy storms is very bad. Glad it all worked out for you.
ReplyDeleteBob & MJ