Mother Nature is capable of snarling even your best-laid plans.

Earlier this week, a snowstorm rolled through our area at the perfect time to make an apocalyptic scene of the evening rush hour. I had watched the forecast on the local news for days, and had a pretty good sense of just when the worst was supposed to hit.

That led to a plan to beat the snow, which actually just worked to put me right in the middle of the madness.

I normally drive to the Metro at about 8:30 p.m. in order to arrive at work sometime between 9:30 and 9:45. But the morning of the snow, every meteorologist said the worst of the snow was going to start between 4 and 5 p.m., and that we would get a total of about 3-5 inches of snow where I live.

With that information, my plan was simple — drive to the Metro parking garage at 3:30, nap there for a few hours, then take an early train into the city to grab a bite to eat before work.

I slept for a few hours, and woke up to check the latest forecast. In that time, the timeline for the worst of the snow had been moved up and the expected amount of snow had been doubled. Awesome.

As I walked out the door just before 3:30, traffic was moving smoothly on the road in front of our neighborhood and only a light sleet was falling from the sky. I felt encouraged and confident that my plan was going to turn out well.

Given the conditions, I skipped the small, windy road I usually take to the Metro, opting instead for a series of highways (Fairfax County Parkway, Route 50, Interstate 66) that I assumed would be in better shape. Unfortunately, so did everyone else, and the moment I got onto the Fairfax County Parkway, traffic came to a complete stop.

And then the snow started.

Having grown up in this area, I know it only takes a few flakes to turn normally insane drivers into something that resembles a herd of newborn giraffes trying to find their footing. Cars slide left and right off the road. A driver slams on the gas, sees that isn’t getting him anywhere and decides to just keep flooring it in hopes something magically changes. In short, it isn’t pretty.

The route I chose usually takes about 20 minutes to drive. In the ever-deteriorating conditions on this day, it took me six hours. The trip was 360 minutes of driving 10 feet, stopping for 10 minutes, driving seven feet, stopping for 15 minutes, dodging stalled cars, merging two lanes into one to get past the guy who couldn’t make it up the hill and watching as pedestrians easily out-walked even the fastest car.

In short, it was a nightmare. If it weren’t for a phone equipped with the Internet and an iPod packed with podcasts, I may have gone insane.

At about the two-hour mark, I had made it roughly four miles from my house. I was on a section of the Parkway that features a slight uphill. The slow pace of traffic was actually helping a lot of drivers — since we weren’t going more than two miles per hour, it was rarely necessary to touch the gas pedal. But some people missed the memo.

It was here that I had my only close call of the trip. A driver had managed to get his car sideways across both lanes about midway up the small hill. I watched, almost in a daze, as he repeatedly slammed on the accelerator, alternating between forward and reverse, in an attempt to get pointed in the right direction. The result was a lot of noise, and a car sliding uncontrollably sideways down the hill. A few times the car came within inches of my own, until thankfully there was enough of an opening for me to squeeze by safely.

A lot of drivers recognized their lack of ability to handle the conditions (or just became frustrated and gave up), abandoning their cars on the side of the road. Or sometimes in the middle of the road. As each piece of a mile went on, I had a rolling mental calculus going to consider my options. The range started at pull over and walk home, pull over and walk to my parents’ house, pull over and walk to the Metro, and of course pull over and start a dance-off in the middle of the snowy road. OK, maybe not the last one.

Strangely though, at no point did it occur to me to take a picture of the scene. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have the time. So to make up for my lack of photo evidence, please enjoy this photo from snowy Alaska featuring my aunt, grandfather and mom holding a group of fish:

Photo unrelated in any way to this story

The option I decided to pursue was basically, “I have gone this far, I might as well keep going.” As the hours and hours rolled on, I took solace in the small milestones: getting to the next intersection, passing another snowplow idling on the shoulder, seeing another police car dodge oncoming traffic instead of using our lanes. I can’t even describe my excitement when I actually exited onto a new road.

Of course, the entire time I was driving I became more and more sure that I was going to make it to the Metro, only to have them close down the above-ground portion of the system. That would include the station I was driving to, and supposedly happens when there is eight inches of snow.

Shortly before I arrived at the station, I checked Facebook from my phone. One of my contacts had posted something about Metro shutting down…the bus system. I only had a small heart attack when reading the first half of that sentence. Thankfully though, the train portion of my trip was entirely uneventful and I made it into work only half an hour after my shift started. My dinner plans shifted to what I could get out of a vending machine, but at least I was there.

On the way home the next morning, the carnage was really incredible. The roads were passable, but the huge collection of abandoned cars was quite a sight. I would estimate I passed at least 100 cars ditched in the snow, some of which were still sitting in the middle of a lane.

So I guess the lesson is here is that planning ahead is good, but planning ahead better is better. Oh, and sometimes the uneventful 20-minute drive is something to be celebrated.