Winter season arrives

The winter sports season opened Friday night and for me it was a rugged opening weekend.
Friday night, I spent the night at home, watching the Columbia girls’ tip-off tournament.
All four teams in the tournament -- the Tide, Hempfield, Central Dauphin East and Lampeter-Strasburg made the District 3 playoffs last year. Three of the four teams, the lone exception being the host Tide, went into the state playoffs.
Hempfield won the L-L League and L-S is favored to win it this year. They were the Tide’s first two games.
Not a great way to start the season for the Tide.
Saturday, I had a game plan all mapped out.
I was planning to get up early and head north to Reading and the outlets to get a Michael Jack Schmidt autograph, then head northwest to Upper Dauphin to watch the Tide wrestle in the Upper Dauphin Duals, and then head off Peters Mountain to Hanover to watch the Tide boys play in the Hanover tournament.
Well, two out of three isn’t bad.
I didn’t get to Reading. I wanted to be out the door by six, but it was more like seven and since they were giving tickets out at eight, I didn’t want to chance it.
So, instead I headed north, up Peters Mountain to Upper Dauphin. Not a bad trip mind you, but UDA is out in the middle of no where.
Made it there in about 90 minutes and took in three of the Tide’s five matches. One thing about the UDA Duals, it was tough competition for the Tide, who will only benefit from it later in the season.
Then the fun started.
It was a little overcast, okay, a lot overcast as I began the trip from UDA to Hanover. As I hit the Harrisburg area, it started snowing. The farther down Route 581 I got and onto 11-15 South, the worse it got.
I basically went from doing  60 down to 10. That’s how bad it was. There were a few accidents along the way and I did slip and slide a little bit, almost three hours after I left UDA, I arrived in Hanover. Map Quest said it was a 90 minute trip!
I wasn’t the only one who struggled to get there. The Tide boys took well over 2.5 hours and I talked to a few fans who said it 1.5 hours just to get to Hellam and they turned around and went home.
Someone asked me Sunday why I just didn’t turn around and come back to Columbia. Well, I have to admit that I thought about it, but I was on very unfamiliar roads and with it snowing, I didn’t want to get off on a road and get lost or stuck.
Driving Saturday, at least eh last 90 minutes or so, was like me driving over certain bridges where I can look over the side and see down. I was gripping the steering wheel that hard, I had nail marks on my palms.
While going from UDA to Hanover was no treat, the trip home wasn’t as stressful as the roads were fine.
I did take it easy going to and coming home from Hanover. But I won’t do it again, because it just wasn’t perhaps the safest thing to do.
And this is just the first week of the season, it could be a long winter!