I recently had the pleasure of driving nearly 30 hours to get back home for my beloved Nana's funeral. Driving from Cincinnati to Newburyport, Massachusetts is a14 hour and 41 minute drive, according to Yahoo! Maps. Under normal driving conditions, I can do it in 13 hours because I drive very fast. This trip, however, would prove to be quite different...

First of all, I had an itinerary...a plan. And I like to stick to plans, but I also gave myselft room for error, because I knew I was going to be driving into a horrible storm. Now, you are probably asking yourself, "Geez, Lisa...why didn't you fly?" and the answer, really, is quite simple. There is no part of me that wanted to pay $750 for a round trip plane ticket and get stranded in Newark or Philly or DC and miss my Nana's funeral. So, at least by driving, I had control of being where I needed to be, not at the whim of the airlines. Unlike them, I can fly in snow.

It began Wednesday night, when I would drive from Cincinnati to Buffalo, New York. My goal was to get ahead of the storm on the way out and for the first leg of the trip, my plan was successful. I encountered some flurries on the way to Buffalo, but nothing to be majorly concerned about. That would come later.

I spent the night in Buffalo and hit the road Thursday at 9AM to drive to Albany, New York. This is normally a four hour trip, but it wouldn't be today. There was a solid covering of snow on the ground when I left Buffalo, but the highways were very good. Clear and repeatedly salted and sanded. Much unlike some other states I know that get snow, New York really knows how to keep their roads clean. I must give credit where credit is due. They have it down to a science.

However, where Mother Nature prevails, science can fail, and such was the case by the time I hit Syracuse. I was smart enough to rent a car for my trip, because I knew my Mini Cooper would not serve me well. I was driving a very sturdy Dodge Charger, and it handled very nice in the snow! Which was a good thing, cause it was really snowing hard and driving had slowed to a crawl. And this is how I would spend the next two hours...in the blinding snow at a crawl, sandwiched somewhere in between the plows and the semis.

When I got to Albany, New York, the snow was turning into the ever popular "wintry mix". It kinda looked like snow when it was falling, but landed like a raindrop. It was weird and created a nasty, slushy mix on the road. I remember saying to my Aunt that I would be lucky heading into Massachusetts because it was only going to be rain! "ONLY GOING TO BE RAIN." I actually said those words...out loud.

Little did I know, the rain would be blinding force rain and hurricane winds. This was not a good time to discover the Charger had horrible windshield wipers. Damn you, Alamo. Don't you check these things?? I would end up driving in these conditions for another few hours. And I won't lie, folks, I couldn't see anything. So, here's how they do it in Massachusetts...

One car gets in the fast lane, traditionally the left lane, but in Massachusetts, any open lane is fair game for passing, even the breakdown lane. This is the "lead car" and is traditionally an expensive sedan, like a Mercedes or Lexus. The lead car cannot be a compact sized car, nor can it be a 4 cylinder engine. This is no place for the little guys. Or the faint at heart.

So, the lead car sets the pace, which can be anywhere between 70 and 85 MPH. Keep in mind, the slower you go, the more likely you are to lose the lead car position, and therefore any bragging rights and perhaps even your man card (if you are, in fact, a man). The lead car cannot afford to be scared, because they are basically the seeing eye dog for the entire train of cars behind them.

In blinding force rain, you have absolutely ZERO visibility when there is another car directly in front of you. You can't see anything, because you are not only dealing with the rain, but you also have the spray from the car in front of you. All you can see are their tail lights, which you are following closely. Tailgating, even. Way too close to be considered safe. But this is how they do it in Massachusetts, where all drivers, regardless of gender, possess testicles.

I found myself in the lead position several times, because with my crappy wiper problem, it was the best place for me. At certain times, our chain of blind, speeding, tailgating vehicles numbered ten or more...at others, there were just a few of us. And the entire time, I'm thinking...Now, this is how you drive in the rain. You trust the car in front of you to lead and you follow as close as you possibly can.

Ok, this may not be the safest way to do it, but at least people in Massachusetts still get where they need to go when it rains, unlike Southerners, who shut down major cities during storms like this. Later that night, when I was curled up comfortably on my Aunt's couch and safe and warm, I would hear the wind and rain and be thankful I still wasn't driving in it. In the morning, there would be millions without power across New England, entire beaches wiped out and major roads closed from downed trees and power lines. It was a really, really bad storm.

On the way home from Massachusetts...and let me tell you how happy I was to finally get back home!!...I would encounter more awful weather, including another snow storm across Upstate New York during which I almost hit a very large deer. It was the closest call of the trip, as I honestly thought I was going to hit it. That's another story all together, but I'm telling you, it was a very close, and hairy, call. It would have been bad.

The good news is, I made it there and home. And truth be told, to honor my Nana and the 91 years of love she gave to everyone, I would turn around right now and do it all again, no hesitation. Except this time, I'd check my wiper blades first.