With a large amount of snow predicted to hit the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, I made the decision to take the bus to the Metro for my last night of work for the week.  The idea was that in the morning I would have an easier time getting home on snowy roads if I could let someone else drive.

Unfortunately, something went wrong with the plan.  It snowed A LOT.  Like, a lot.  Before dawn, the bus system announced it was suspending service until some unknown time.

No problem, I had a plan.  I started a few blocks from the Capitol with a need to eat breakfast and kill a little time in hopes the buses would start running again and I could easily get home:

I hope people had fun following this saga as it progressed on Twitter and Instagram.  I certainly endured some chilly fingers trying to post things and walk in the gloveless cold at the same time.  See, it was cold:

I had a clear target in mind for the breakfast portion of my day.  There was no guarantee it would be open, but I had to try, and with time to kill it really didn’t matter.  After making my way north to Constitution Avenue, I got a little more efficient and utilized the wonderful diagonal street that is Pennsylvania Avenue:

For most of my journey, the sidewalks were in immeasurably better shape than the roads in D.C.  Massive shout-out to all the people out there with shovels, snowblowers and small pieces of construction equipment that I could not accurately name.

I turned north again on 7th Street, pausing to take in this nice scene in Penn Quarter and ponder making a snowman.  Unfortunately, the snow was on the dry side, so I skipped constructing Frosty:

The cool folks at the Washington Post TV unit put together a montage of shots people took around the city and posted on Instagram.  They included the photo above.  Check out the whole thing here.

As soon as I got going again, I tried to do my part in letting people know which places in the city were willing and able to take their money:

Starbucks at 7th & Indiana is open. I have a more delicious spot in mind. #dc #operationgetbreakfastgethome
— Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) February 13, 2014

Finally, I made it up the immaculate sidewalks on 7th Street to the Chinatown area that houses both the Verizon Center and a number of restaurants, including Dunkin Donuts:

On my way into the store, I walked by what the workers said was a CNN photog.  I was too cold to wave.  With one of my two main goals complete, I moved onto the “get home” portion of the operation.  Again, I went up 7th Street, turning left on H Street to head west across the city.

Remember how I said I was posting things while walking?  Yeah, that’s a bad idea, even if there are practically no cars on the road and nobody on the sidewalks:

Careful walking next to tall buildings. Almost got clobbered by a huge mess of falling wet snow on H St #dc #operationgetbreakfastgethome
— Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) February 13, 2014

It was while on H Street that I really appreciated my decision to not try to drive at all.  All but the biggest roads were awful:

Even more snow-covered were pedestrian plazas that only I was interested in walking this morning.  Oh, and the statues:

Of course, I couldn’t walk through all that white stuff and not make a stop at the White House:

A few seconds after I snapped this picture, a tourist came over and asked me to take one of him with the Washington Monument and White House behind him.  Then he asked for directions to a particular Metro station, and it just so happened that I had just been there a little while earlier (see Penn Quarter picture above).

Finally, it was time to get myself to the Metro.  I went to the nearby Farragut West station to grab the orange line to West Falls Church.  I may have ended up on the oldest car in the entire Metro fleet:

Ignoring the crap on the windows, I felt very good about my chances of an easy ride home once we popped out above ground:

I kept checking the bus service’s Twitter page to see if they would change their mind about reassessing at 2 p.m. and just open up since the highway looked so good.  At the very least, I assumed I would be able to get a cab from the Metro station.  There’s a highway that runs pretty much directly from there to my house.

No bus or cab to be found after I got off the Metro…proceeding to another location. Hoping good karma from directing another guy to Metro
— Chris Hannas (@cjhannas) February 13, 2014

Hahaha, no.  I admit, there was a 10-minute period here where I basically just started walking down the snow-covered street not sure of what I was doing.  During this time I directed two more people toward the Metro.  Then I realized I had technology available to me, namely a little service called Uber.  I tried several times to get a driver to accept me, but finally, Souhail said he would be there in 13 minutes to pick me up and end this ordeal.

I was one of about seven people at the station who were stranded without the buses.  Everyone else was calling cab companies, and the response they all got was, “We’re not sending anyone out there until the roads are better.”  Seven minutes into my 13-minute wait, I got a text saying Souhail had canceled.  My cell battery was at 32 percent.

I tried again, and again it took several battery-sucking tries to get a driver to commit to me.  Brian and his Honda Civic were coming in 10 minutes.  He called right away, we set a pickup spot and everything was gravy.  Until he called again not even two minutes later saying his car was stuck and he wasn’t coming.  Cell battery 24 percent.

This time, it took many battery-sucking tries and re-loadings of the app to get a driver.  This one was named Mohammed.  He would be there in 24 minutes.  I barely had time to read that before another text came in saying Mohammed had canceled.  Cell battery 22 percent.

I told myself I would try one more time, then make a new plan.  Uber hooked me up with Peter and his vehicle large enough that I had no doubt he would arrive.  He was there in less than 10 minutes:

As we got close to my neighborhood, I told him he would probably have to drop me at the front since historically plowing is a pretty low priority.  Even the large vehicle of salvation got only a few feet into the neighborhood before he stopped and I got out, dropping my cell phone and its 19 percent battery on the ground in the process.  For everything that had happened on the way home, I was immediately validated in knowing that driving myself absolutely was not an option:

I could have taken a shower and gone to sleep happy at that point, but there was still the matter of the giant pile of snow on the front porch, sidewalk and all around my car.  My roommate happened to be one his way out to start dealing with said snow, so we put in an epic tag-team effort to clear everything out.  We also got a visit from a friendly plow truck:

After all of that extra effort, we decided we had earned a trip to Taco Bell. We piled into his larger car and made the quick journey down the street in search of magic to refuel us.  Alas, we were met with only utter, heartbreaking sadness.  A sign on the door said they were closed due to the weather.  We settled for a nearby Chipotle and the hope that maybe, somehow, Taco Bell will be open for dinner.

And with that, 23 hours after I got up yesterday, I bid you good night.  And by that I mean a three-hour power nap before dinner and flipping my schedule back to being a regular person for the weekend.

Happy snowy weekend.