What seemed like a simple assignment yesterday — riding along on three of five stops on a five-county tour by Boy Scout officials — got a little dicey late in the afternoon.

I had driven to Newburgh, to the new home of the Hudson Valley Council of Boy Scouts of America, at mid-morning for a noon presentation there on plans for the Boy Scout centennial celebration beginning this month and extending through the February 2010 anniversary until the end of next year.

We then boarded a bus in Newburgh, amid snow flurries, to ride to Hyde Park, for a similar but modified presentation in Dutchess County, one of five counties served by the Hudson Valley Council.

It snowed most of the time we were in Hyde Park, which made a late afternoon trip down the east side of the Hudson River to the Bear Mountain Bridge slow and arduous.

The bus, carrying press, scout officials and several scouts, just made it to Bear Mountain in time for the 4:30 press conference there. Because I would be heading back to Newburgh by bus, another reporter Jenna Carlesso was heading from our West Nyack office to cover the Bear Mountain event.

Problem was, she was stuck in traffic behind accidents on the Palisades Parkway and made it to Bear Mountain about 15 minutes before the bus was to depart, taking me and all the sources she needed off to Orange County. She made it to the Merry-Go-Round at Bear Mountain just in time to speak with everyone she needed. Her trip back to West Nyack to file her story was uneventful.

So was my trip back to Newburgh to retrieve my car, except that it took almost three hours.

We left Bear Mountain at about 5:35 p.m. and pulled into the Hudson Valley Council Service Center parking lot at 8:30, most of the time inching along Orange County roads.

Fortunately, we had bags of chips, chocolate and plenty of water. We joked about having to ration one scout volunteer’s box of powdered donuts and another volunteer’s red grapes.

The driver of our West Point Tours bus showed remarkable endurance as he tried at first to head north on Route 9W past Highland Falls. When it became clear that route was blocked by accidents and cars on ice, he headed for the front gate of the Military Academy.

Because of the security there, an armed soldier had to board the bus and check each passenger’s photo ID.

We then headed north through the post and onto Route 293. After a merge with Route 6 coming off the Palisades, we crawled all the way to where the road crosses the New York State Thruway, near Exit 16. We headed north on the Thruway to Exit 17. From there, it was a short hop to the council offices on Route 300.

For most of the folks on the bus, Newburgh was a final destination. Of course, I then had to make the drive back to Nanuet, arriving after 9:30 p.m.

All that time, we saw only one serious accident — near Cold Spring in Putnam — but knew there were many out there who had bigger problems than a three-hour bus trip.

We were tired, but lucky, and we all realized it.