Trip to family home turns into snowy odyssey
At 4 pm on Friday, me, my husband, our two daughters and niece — together with our dog — embarked on a journey from Wuhan to Yichang in Hubei province to celebrate Xiao Nian, or Minor Chinese New Year, with my husband’s parents.
The day is traditionally seen as the prologue to the Spring Festival.
Although the weather forecast was for snow, we decided to drive to my in-laws’ home as we had promised them a long time ago that the family would spend the festival together.
However, we underestimated the destructive power of nature.
We had expected traffic congestion, so shortly after we entered the G50 highway we filled the car with gasoline for the journey ahead. What we did not expect was that it would take almost 20 hours to finish the normal three-and-a-half-hour drive.
On the highway, traffic moved at a snail’s pace, which is common during festivals. Ominously, the GPS soon told us it would take more than six hours to reach our destination.
When we reached Xiantao, the GPS said that the travel time would be further extended to eight hours.
We stopped at a service station in Qianjiang to get some food and water. The newly renovated station was filled with people and there was a festive atmosphere.
Although the cold weather had made travel more difficult, people still wanted to reunite with their families for the upcoming Spring Festival, the most important holiday of the year for Chinese people.
After we left the station, the traffic became more congested, and the navigation system said we could arrive at 3 am the next day. When freezing rain suddenly started, the traffic stopped completely.
“Do we need to spend the night on the highway?” one of my daughters asked with a hint of excitement. However, I began to worry whether we really had to spend the night there.
To save fuel and battery life, most of the cars had stopped and the highway fell into complete darkness. The children eventually became quiet and fell asleep.
However, we were soon awaked by lightning and thunder. It then began to hail, followed by heavy snowfall. The children became excited again and marveled at the site of the snow.
The highway turned into a giant parking lot. With all the cars stopped, it was like a scene from the Hollywood movie The Day After Tomorrow.
My husband and I started the car once every hour to keep us warm. My in-laws called often to check how we were going.
We tried to call the highway police to try to get more information, but we couldn’t get through as there were too many people asking for help.
At dawn, people got out of their vehicles to stretch their legs and view the snow.
The cars started to move slowly at around 8 am, but the vehicle in front of us stayed still. My husband got out of our car to check on the driver only to find that he was still asleep.
On the highway, we could only move at 20 kilometers per hour due to the snow. Many cars had broken down and there were also traffic accidents.
We left the highway at Jinzhou and headed to Yichang via an expressway.
However, at a set of traffic lights our car became trapped in snow, so all of us got out and pushed it. We saw many other cars stuck in the snow and strangers offering to help move the vehicles.
At 2 pm the next day, we finally arrived in Yichang after our “special journey” of more than 20 hours.
We were exhausted, but also relieved that we had finally arrived at a warm family home.