I had one of those harrowing winter drives on Sunday night.

You know the kind.

After a while, you wonder what the heck you’re doing on the road. You start to question if this might be it.

What made it worse was my wife and son was with me. So ‘it’ wasn’t an option.

We’d been visiting Mother Dearest earlier in the day in Barrie and stayed for dinner. When we left to come home, all was clear and the roads – in most spots – were only slightly covered with snow.

But as we got north of Apto on Highway 27, south of Elmvale, things got real bad, real quick.

It was that sideways kind of snow. And there was lots of it. So much that after a few minutes I started to lose my sense of direction.

“Keep your eyes on the edge of the road,” I said to Mrs. Gennings.

The Boy – thankfully – was fast asleep in his car seat and none the wiser to our predicament.

After a few minutes – with only one car behind us and none coming the other way – I told Mrs. Gennings I needed to pull off.

“I’m afraid if we keep going I’ll hit the ditch,” I said, or words to that effect.

We spotted a 9-1-1 number at the end of someone’s lane and so I pulled us in, safely off the road.

The heavy snowfall continued.

For a moment I thought we might have to pound on the door of the home and seek refuge but after a few minutes a caravan of very slowly moving vehicles came along, headed towards Elmvale. Once they were by, we pulled out, put the four-ways on and tucked in behind a big truck – the last of the vehicles that had just passed us.

“You can’t beat a big truck in weather like this,” I said to Mrs. Gennings. “So often when I lived in Northern Ontario I found my way back to North Bay by following a truck. Transport trucks were the best.”

Mrs. Gennings “uh-huh-ed” and kept her eyes on the road.

A few minutes later she spoke again.

“What happens if the truck you’re following drives off the road or takes a road that goes in another direction?”

Good question.

“I don’t know,” I replied, both hands on the wheel. “Never happened.”

At any rate we finally rolled into Elmvale and the snow seemed to slow.

And thankfully the rest of the journey wasn’t too bad. Just your normal, stormy, Canadian night. But we could see!

As our wheels rolled over the snow-packed road, I got to thinking about the time I spent three hours in Powassan because of the weather.

I was trying to get from North Bay to Barrie and my mother was with me. The snow was falling so fast that at one point I had to stop the car, get out and peer down the road to make sure we were going in the right direction.

We pulled off in Powassan and decided to wait things out. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always been a big believer in pulling off when the weather’s too bad. I figure it’s better to be late getting somewhere than to wind up dead.

Anywho, the only two places open were a tavern and a Chinese food place. I checked out the bar first but it was so scuzzy I just couldn’t take my mom into it.

“Let’s see what the Chinese place is like,” I told her, getting back into the car.

Thankfully, it was clean, warm and well lit. We slid into a booth and after a minute or so a waitress came over.

“Do you take debit?” I asked.

The woman shook her head.

“Sorry, cash or Visa.”

Of course, Mother Dearest and I both carried only MasterCard at the time and between us we had the grand sum of $1.83 in cash.

“Hmmm…I guess we’ll split a Coke,” I said.

And there we sat, for three hours, sipping our cola and chatting while the snow fell outside.

When things finally slowed we got back in the car and headed out to the highway.

Pulling off the 400 in Barrie a couple hours later, I was never so relieved in my life. Our wretched drive was over.

I had much the same feeling Sunday night when Mrs. Gennings, The Boy and I pulled into our driveway.

I also had some choice words about winter and my own stupidity for getting caught in such a storm.

Michael Gennings is the community editor for The Stayner Sun and The Wasaga Sun. Feedback is welcome at mgennings@simcoe.com.