The Long Trip Home

The forecast had been saying we would get a winter storm. We were under a Winter Storm Warning from 6pm Friday until 6pm Saturday and that warning had been issued on Thursday...maybe even Wednesday night. Snow started falling just before 4:30 on Friday. I was at work as I usually am on Fridays. We closed at our normal time (5pm) and T arrived just a few minutes later to pick me up. Normally, we're home in 20 minutes. Thirty if the traffic is bad and an hour if we decide to stop at the grocery store or pick up dinner on the way home. T told me he had received a call from my sister saying the main road we usually take was a mess so he picked an alternate route.

We were on our way and would have been okay except the van in front of us started spinning on the side of a hill. We had to stop which is never a good idea. T is very resourceful and was determined we weren't going to be stuck there. He got the ice scraper and dug around the tires down to the road so he could get some traction. After about 15 minutes of scraping and trying, he had turned the car around and we were on our way again.

It was slow going but mostly uneventful. We decided to check the main road my sister had said was bad to see if the traffic snarl had cleared up any. It looked fine. Sure, there was a long line of tail lights ahead but the traffic was moving. We didn't want to go around the back roads we had traveled the last time it snowed because we had such a hard time on that one hill. We decided since the traffic was moving on the main road, we would take that. After we passed all turnoffs for alternate routes, we hit a snarl that left us sitting in a line of traffic for almost 4 hours as snow continued to fall.

Finally just after 9pm, we were on our way again and dreading the road to T's mom's house where The Princess Trio had been since getting off the bus at 3:30. As we expected the road was virtually untouched. We could see where other vehicles had traveled earlier but those tracks were filled with fresh snow. I held my breath when we crossed the narrow bridge and started up the hill on the other side. We almost made it to the top before we slid to the side. Again, T was out of the car digging around the tires with an ice scraper. Hard as he tried, the car just wasn't gripping the road. Someone else who lives on the road stopped and kindly offered us a pull. He pulled us to an area that's mostly flat and then followed us to be sure we made it to my mother in-law's house okay.

By this point, we were sure we didn't even want to try bringing our Plymouth Breeze up the road to our house. It's a private gravel drive with a couple steep hills. T parked the car at the end of his mom's driveway off to the side a little so his brother could get in and out. We got the girls and walked the mile from mother in-law's house to our own house. It was a cold walk and I was thankful for the flashlight T took from the car. When I walked through the door a little after 10:00 Friday night, home was the best place in the world. I probably ruined my shoes because I walked home in the shoes I had worn to work that morning. Unlike last time, I hadn't put my sneakers and extra socks in the car.

That long trip home is an experience I do not wish to repeat but I know it could have been much worse. I can't imagine going through that with the kids in the car and I'm very glad God answered my prayers and sent a helping hand so we didn't have to walk any further than we did.