We're here and safe

We left on Saturday to visit my parents in Houston, and what should have been an uneventful drive turned rather eventful.

We left Columbia expecting to get south of Oklahoma City before the expected bad weather hit southern Kansas and Oklahoma. That was not to be the case. Rain started in Kansas City, and by the time we got to Paola, it had turned to sleet. By Emporia, things were slow, but passable. As we moved southwest on the Kansas Turnpike, things went scary in a hurry. We were in the position of not being able to turn back, but at the same time not daring to stop. So we continued to Wichita, and got off due to stop-and-go traffic caused by a semi jackknifed about five miles down the turnpike.

Our intention was to find a motel, but Wichita had no vacancies at every place we looked. We decided to travel on a highway parallel to I-35 for a while and check out the towns just south of Wichita. Still no dice. I looked over toward the Turnpike and noticed that the traffic was moving again, and it was not closed as we had been led to believe, so we got on and headed into Oklahoma. We stopped at every interchange where we could see motels, and they were all full. Finally, we founf a room at Guthrie, OK, and settled into a much needed sleep. I had 12 hours behind the wheel, and that was quite enough. The road problems in Oklahoma were not blizzard conditions; they were black ice. I'm just VERY thankful we did not have to spend the night in the car at a truck stop.

Sunday morning (when we had hoped to be in northern Texas), we resumed our trip. The roads rapidly improved, and by the time we were south of Norman, OK things looked pretty good. We finally arrived in Houston around 6:00pm and are still here enjoying family.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all of you!