"Snowstorm racks Minn.
In Minneapolis, 17.1 inches of snow fell, the fifth-highest total in city history."Even if I hadn't woken up to this headline on the front page of The Minnesota Daily newspaper on Monday morning, I feel quite confident I would've been well aware that the metro was the target of a massive blizzard this past weekend...considering I became trapped in the dead eye of the historical storm that ultimately made sports history forever. Let's journey back to Saturday, December 11, 2010 shall we?
One of my best friends, lets call her Dakota, was visiting me for the weekend from UW-La Crosse and we had plans to travel to the nation's largest mall on Saturday to do our Christmas shopping. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into as soon as we stepped outside of Frontier Hall...
No, that's a lie. We knew. Considering the wind and snow made it nearly impossible to walk to the bus stop a few yards away from the dorm and the Rt 16 Bus even got stuck on the way to the lightrail station and we had to walk a block or so to the station, we knew it was just the beginning of a monster. Our thoughts were further confirmed when the lightrail was stuck for about 15 minutes on the tracks on the way to Mall of America. Alas, Christmas shopping needed to be done, Dakota wanted Johnny Rockets, and I needed a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory premium apple. Priorities people.
Fast-forward to 4:00 pm. The stores started to close, very "Titanic-esque" pulling down their gates to refuse customers any more service for "the safety of the employees." Just then, I received a text from a friend back on campus, "So...MetroTransit is suspended." (Note: MetroTransit is the ONLY public bus transportation system in the Twin Cities. They have a monopoly.) Thank God the lightrail is NOT included in this suspension, so we booked our butts and bags to the lightrail in the parking lot of the mall only to shove our way onto the train that has about 5X too many people. Here, we learned that the train has been sitting there for about 45 minures because oh, I don't know...there was a WRECK a little down the way! Eventually, the train started to move, and since the lightrail only goes downtown, not to campus, I texted my friends back in the dorm to look up the cab service numbers to send a cab downtown to pick us up. New Text Message: "No cabs are running. Some won't even pick up the phone." Alright, so now panic starts to insue. We are crammed into a tiny lightrail car with 100 other people, heading to a place that isn't even home and....the lightrail gets stuck, multiple times. Claustrophobia? Hey I'm Kayla, nice to meet you.
Part 2 of the journey begins when the lightrail finally gets us safely to the downtown stop. Some people on the train said they are going to walk back to campus so, instead of dropping $100 on a hotel for a night, we decide to attempt to make the trek and follow them.
Apparently these people are Olympic sprinters and hurdlers. As they bound over snowbanks and fly across snowy, icy, intersections, me and Dakota are panting far, far behind, tripping over our Uggs, nearly slipping on corners, shopping bags hitting our legs and further slowing us down. Funny, considering I'm so athletic and Dakota so nimble and quick...we get left in the dust, or in this case, powder. We trekked about a half hour and as we looked around, we realized we were in a scene from The Day After Tomorrow. People were walking in the middle of the road, cars in ditches and the few that were moving had tires stuck halfway into the snow. For a while, I knew what road we were on and kinda had some bearings, but then the city decided to be a brat and change Washington Ave into 4th St without any warning. With windblown faces, runny noses, freezing hands, soaking wet boots, and no sense of direction, we ducked into the sole establishment open on the street we were on, The Corner Bar.
We indulged in some refreshing beverages (pop), energy-enriched sandwiches (grilled cheese) and hot chili (yep, just hot chili.) We indulged very slowly, relishing each moment in the safety of indoors until we had paid our bill and had no choice but to embark back into the wretched environment outdoors. Using my context clues and a map of a random part of Minneapolis, I got us to the right road to get back to campus. Problem: it's an exit ramp. Solution: Being that there were no cars, we trekked and slid down the exit ramp, facing the would-be traffic head on. (Note: Dakota had fallen like 3 times at this point, at least this lightened the mood.)
Sweet victory. We saw, through the flurries, to an overpass that read "University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus." I literally screamed out in joy, "We made it!!" We then had to crawl underneath a fence and walk across the Mississippi River, but eventually we burst into Frontier Hall Rm 193, Christmas purchases in tow, with chilled bodies, stressed out minds, parched throats, and quite the story.
I end this post with some pictures: 1) An extremely flattering one of Dakota and I after we stripped off our durable, reliable winter jackets that got us through the storm, complete with appropriate facial expressions and a complete mat of icy, snarly hair on my head.
2) What happened shortly after, about 2 miles away from our dorm, to mark sports history forever as the day the Metrodome caved in and tore open.
3) TCF Bank stadium, about 2 blocks from our dorm, in the midst of being prepared today to host the Vikings and Bears in less than a week.
Mom comes tomorrow :) Safe to say I am ready to be home for the holidays.
