Snowbound

New England packs a doozy of a winter, featuring six months of potential snowfall and unpredictable weather. It's unpleasant, but you get used to snow ruining your plans. You learn not to take blizzards personally, and you reschedule when you can.

But our plans for Friday night--seeing a holiday concert--couldn't be rescheduled. We already bought the tickets, and the show is an annual tradition. I've been going for 4 or 5 years now, and snowstorms haven't kept us away in the past. Of course, in the past, our proximity to the city meant we could take public transportation when it snowed. Living in the boonies leaves us in a trickier situation when a foot of snow is coming to town.

The timing of the snow made driving potentially more complicated, very much like the Dec 13 storm of last year (aka the worst day ever, in which I traveled a half mile in 9 hours and then had to turn around and go back to work when my car battery was about to die)--the snow was due to start around lunchtime and get bad in a hurry. I was concerned that roads would be congested with drivers who left immediately after lunch, just like last year, and that we wouldn't be able to get to the show if we waited until after work got out.

The safest solution was to get downtown in the morning before the snow started and stay there all day, until after the snow ended. My initial plan was to take my laptop in and work all day in a Starbuck's. Unpleasant, perhaps, but doable, and I could just put my laptop in the car after work and head over to the show.

Then I remembered seeing a Travelzoo deal recently for a discounted hotel room in the city. I double-checked, and the rate was amazing. Even better, the hotel was in the Starwood family. It would be one final opportunity to enjoy B's hotel status before the new year steals it away. I double-checked with B, and he was agreeable, so I booked it the day before the storm without a problem.

And am I glad that we did. The room (technically a suite, but more like an oversized room, though we did have two windows) was ready when we arrived at 8 AM, so I didn't have to spend any time working in a Starbuck's (though we did stop into one, for B's noun-string coffee and my noun-string hot chocolate), and its proximity to restaurants meant that I didn't have to go outside again until we left that evening for the show. And not having to face a long drive at midnight through the snow was justification and then some for the expense (so much that getting a hotel room might have to become a new annual tradition).

After we got back home from the hotel the next morning, we spent the rest of the weekend hibernating due to the snowstorm that arrived on Sunday. I've learned that the best way to pass a snowbound day is to plan your next vacation. The Madrid leg of our trip is all planned, and I've made significant progress on Barcelona. I still don't speak Catalan, but perhaps my deep admiration for Gaudi will shine through during my attempts at Spanish.