As I mentioned in my last post, Laura and I have two Christmases, one with my parents and one with her parents. This year at her parents did not go as either one of us expected. As it turned out, the weather worked against us.
The week of Christmas, Laura and I had planned on heading south after I got off work Wednesday. We were going to stay with my Grandpa, have Christmas at her parents house, stay a couple days and come home. Well, it started raining Wednesday, which should have been a sign to me in the first place. Rain…December…not good. On my drive home from work, the rain started freezing on everything. We ultimately decided to wait until Thursday morning to leave so I would not have to drive in freezing rain in the dark, with a wife and kid. Oh what a mistake THAT turned out to be.
Thursday morning seemed to be better, just misting. We got all packed in the truck about 10:00, no thanks to Mason helping us unpack the suitcase several times. The trip is only about 190 miles and usually takes anywhere from 3 to 4 hours depending on who’s driving…I tend to take a little longer since I can at least read the speed limit signs as they whizz by. Anyway, the farther west we head, the harder it starts to rain, then freezing rain, then…holy crap the road is a skating rink!! Time for four wheel drive! Yes, I know that doesn’t do much good on ice, but it’s a new truck and I like playing with all the toys. We end up crawling along at 35 mph. Laura suggests we turn around and go back home. I knew exactly what she was really trying to tell me, “Yes honey, if we miss having Christmas with my parents, I will use it against you over and over again for YEARS!!” I replied, “we will drive out of the freezing rain stuff in a little while, then smooth sailing”. Just then, I could hear Murphy’s law kicking into full gear. Oops, I’m probably going to regret saying that. I could have really used a piece of wood to knock on right then.
As we head south, it starts to snow. Then snow harder…and harder…and harder. Oh, did I mention that the wind has picked up to about 45 mph gusts. Yeah, it did not take long for the road to turn into a ski slope. White out conditions, and not being able to discern the road from the ditch, apparently makes Laura very uncomfortable because she suggested that we stop at her sisters house (which is about halfway) and wait out the storm. I, of course, say “Nah, we are halfway there now, might as well keep going”. After a little arguing, I realized ‘hey, I’m the one driving’. About an hour later, I was wishing we had stopped at her sisters. Not that I would ever admit that to Laura. I could not see anything, it was snowing and blowing so hard. I especially had a hard time seeing the WHITE CARS driving WITHOUT THEIR HEADLIGHTS ON! Sorry about that outburst, let me push my soapbox out of the way.
My Grandpa lives out in the country in the middle of nowhere. So Laura and I stopped in town first to get groceries. We figured we would be snowed in a day or so. As we head out of town, we came across some rather significant drifts forming across the road. Old hat for me. Drifts are usually fun to drive through, but these seemed to be especially big and solid. They turned out not to be that easy to plow through. We had to get off the main road on to several miles of gravel to get to Grandpa’s house and they were drifted worse than the paved roads. It is now starting to get dark and the headlights are reflecting off the blowing snow making it even harder to see. We finally pull into his driveway and it is blowing so hard I cannot see anything. His driveway is gravel and splits into two to go around a utility pole then opens up into a large gravel area. Since I could not see anything, including the utility pole, I know I would miss it if I went straight. So as I hit a drift I couldn’t see, I mash the accelerator to try and push through it. Nope. The truck just stops. Reverse…no good. I open my door only to see that the truck is buried past the running boards. “Well, were here!” I get a simple eye roll in response. It took seven hours to drive the 190 miles.
It took about 30 minutes to dig the truck out of the drift with a tractor, which included tearing off the air dam with a drift that was hard enough to walk on. Oh well, who needs one of those anyway. Laura, Mason, Grandpa and I ended up being stranded for four days buried in 14 inches of snow which blew into 8 to 12 foot drifts. Laura got a phone call from her sister saying that they had lost power. I am sooo glad we did not stop there. Needless to say, Laura’s parents did not have their family Christmas until the next week since no one could get to their house. Grrr, we should have just stayed home.
Below are some pictures of the storm aftermath:
