A few years ago, I was driving from Salem to Derry after a shopping spree at the Rockingham Mall with my sister.  We walked out of the mall into a wall of fog. 

Now I don't know about you but fog scares the hell out of me.

I had never seen fog like this.  The kind of fog that makes you blink twice.  Makes you think your contact lenses are dirty.  Makes you think you are in a bad horror movie that just won’t stop.  The kind we experienced the other morning.  We laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny at the time.

The fog was so thick; we had to drive at times with our lights off.  At night.  We were literally enveloped in fog and were unable to see a foot in front of us.  We decided to get off the highway, thinking it would be safer to drive on the back roads instead. 

We were wrong. 

We crept ever so slowly over the empty roads at slow speeds, every few feet shutting off our lights so we could orient ourselves.  Still the road closed in.  We were led only by the lines on the road and even those were difficult to make out.

Finally we decided to just stop on the side of the road.  We sat and waited.  Then we realized that if we couldn’t see, no one else could either.  We imagined a car plowing into us from behind and decided to make another attempt at driving on. 

I was so frightened that my hands shook.  I was sweaty and leaning in to the steering wheel peering out into the cloudy mess in front of my car.  It seemed to hang especially thick where there was a creek or pond.  We eventually emerged, the fingers of fog reaching out to get us.

I really don’t know how we made it home that night.  It was the longest fifteen minute drive of my life.  What is that expression about weather in New England?  If you don’t like the weather just wait fifteen minutes?  More like 50 minutes. 

I’ll be glad when it’s summer.