Trip to NYC Is Real-Life ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobile’ Adventure

I had heard somewhere of a Nor’easter before, perhaps in weathercasts, but I wasn’t exactly familiar with one—until this past December.

In late November, I decided to go to New York over the winter holidays. I had some airline credit for agreeing to be “bumped” from a previous flight, and then I located a spectacular vacation rental deal at an extended stay hotel in Long Island City.

No, it wasn’t in Manhattan, but the subway ride looked to be a short 15 minutes right into midtown Manhattan; it was only a block from a subway station; and each room had a balcony with an iconic view of the Manhattan skyline. The notion seemed like a dream.

I might have been forewarned of further trouble when the vacation rental representative sent me the following message in the middle of December: "I regret to inform you that the hotel is undergoing some difficulties due to frozen pipes, no hot water will be running." To sum it up, she would be canceling my reservation and refunding my payment, for fear that the hotel would not be able to repair the plumbing situation within the next two weeks.

Disappointed and disgruntled, I had no other choice except to accept her cancellation—with the promise of a 20% future discount—and rebook elsewhere. Fortunately, I was able to find another last-minute deal in the heart of Manhattan.

The trip began on Monday, one day after Christmas, with an early flight from Memphis International Airport. I was already a little wary of potential trip difficulties after hearing of weather conditions in the New York area, following the arrival of a Nor’easter, a macro-scale storm dropping excessive amounts of snow on the Northeast.

Never having witnessed such a storm, I had no idea how treacherous it could be—or the extent to which it could snarl air traffic.

Before boarding the plane in Memphis, I received a text message—after having signed up for alerts from the airline—informing me that the connecting flight from Chicago to New York had been canceled. However, no representative of my airline at the Memphis airport opted to mention the situation before departure. Thus, I assumed we might have to take a later flight, perhaps even stay one night in the airport, an easily weathered hindrance.

Upon arrival to Chicago’s O’Hare International, we went immediately to rebook. During this process, we were informed that the earliest available flight would be Friday, four days later. I had no desire to fly to New York for one single day on New Year’s Eve and then return the next day on Saturday, the scheduled departure date.

I checked Amtrak, which was sold out for the next two days. The third option was a rental car. Airport rental car services, of course, are notoriously inflated, as I knew. So we took a taxi to a Chicago suburb and rented a car there.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon when the journey east began. The anticipated duration of the drive, according to GPS, was 14 hours. I had taken 12-hour road trips from Tennessee to Texas had with ease, so exactly how difficult could two more hours be in the car?

Getting out of Illinois took a while. Roads were in excellent condition, but traffic was heavy. I soon discovered why the roads were in such great condition: every few miles sat a round, brown structure heaped full of salt—a salt silo to combat those persistent icy weather conditions so common in the north.

In fact, road conditions through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—respectively—were all fine. By contrast, however, traversing the interstate through those Midwestern and Northeastern states provide very little in the way of sightseeing. The nicest perk about the drive is the rest areas, which resemble a food court offering up the likes of Starbucks and fast food giant Burger King, along with two or three other venues.

After 17 hours—including several rest and food stops, we arrived just before 7 a.m. in Weehawken, New Jersey, where road conditions were starting to appear a bit more precarious. A jaunt through Lincoln Tunnel took us right into Manhattan, where New Yorkers were trying to rebound from the aftermath of the storm.

After sliding along Brooklyn streets, I was never so delighted to reach the car rental return. Brooklyn was in even worse shape than Manhattan, with snow piled up to the top of cars, stalling Brooklynites from getting to work that Tuesday morning.

We boarded the subway to Manhattan. Later, after walking through piles of snow and eventually deep puddles of water while crossing streets, I promised myself I would never return to New York in wintertime.


However, I may have changed my mind of late. The six to eight inches of snow dumped on west Tennessee (a Midsouther?)helped fuel that change. If I have to live with snow in either place, at least there is more to do in New York City.