One reason I've not managed to post is because I've been in Oklahoma and Arkansas doing family things. I really did mean to post last week before we left but simply ran out of time. The past 10 days have been nuts, so hopefully you won't think too badly of me for not posting.
Anyway, our Christmas adventure started last Tuesday, December 22. We were getting snow in Chicago, it was supposed to stop snowing by nine...then noon, but at two when we left it was still snowing so we're not sure exactly when it stopped. This is a picture of the car when I went to dust it off to go get Maggie from the airport. It was snowing quite a bit actually and it continued to snow until we hit Springfield, IL. We made it to Jeff and Ginger's house in Waynesville Missouri by about nine (weather added a couple of hours) and got to talk and hang out with them for a bit before turning in for the night.Wednesday, we woke up and started driving to Tulsa. After about half an hour we hit rain. These were the storms that helped flood Arkansas, and we almost stopped several times. We're talking we had 50' visibility. Chris was driving through the I normally don't talk a lot about the treacherous conditions we might be driving in, but we didn't have a clue that this would be some of the easiest of the driving we had to do during our week touring Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Thursday, we woke up and it was raining. It had been raining a while, but then it started sleeting about noon. We managed to drive out to my dad's house and see him before it got too bad. This is a picture of the sleet that had accumulated at my dad's. I took this just before we left.
The drive back to Tulsa was slow -- it took us at least twice as long as normal. When we got in, we decided that we would not be going out in it again. It was starting to snow by the time we made it back to Tulsa, and the roads were icing since it had rained and sleeted so much the snow was coming down on to a layer of ice. As we were driving they were starting to shut down highways and there were a couple of fatal accidents. Since it was snowing it continues to snow for the rest of Thursday (Christmas Eve). We stayed in and missed church, but since we couldn't get out of the driveway and they canceled church we felt this was appropriate. We had horrific wind to go with the snow so we got a nice Christmas blizzard. In Oklahoma. We ended up with around a foot or so of snow when it was all said and done. There were huge drifts in some places, like the one that blocked in our little Focus. This picture was from about six at night -- so all of the snow had come down in about two hours.
John actually was going out at this point in time, which is why you see the foot prints in the snow. He managed to not make it back until the afternoon of Christmas Day. He was unable to get up the driveway in his Tahoe. There were random cars parked all over the streets though from when the cars just wouldn't go any further up a hill.
Since we were snowed in for Christmas we left for Shawnee from Tulsa the day after Christmas, as opposed to Christmas. There was so much snow that we couldn't see curbs and thankfully we let several other families brave the snow and packed it down for us so that we didn't have to plow it in our little Focus.
Saturday driving was all sorts of slippery. We managed to not see many plows which was shocking to us. Being from the Chicago area we typically see plows with the blades down as soon as there is enough snow on the ground for the blades to do any good. We were driving on snowpack with the plows next to us and blades up. We were very confused. On our trip from Tulsa to Shawnee we counted cars in the ditch to help us pass the time. We often saw packs of them together and were shocked at how many people were ending up the ditch practically vertical. Our final count was: 62 cars in the ditch or on the side of the road, 10 plows with only 6 of them having the blades down, and 3 tow trucks (not counting the one in the ditch below). This was in a 90 mile stretch of road. Also are a few pictures of the side of the road. Some of the snow drifts show evidence of lots of wind.
Then driving around Shawnee for a couple of days, well, we probably need a new suspension on the car. They never really plowed and were simply waiting on the snow and ice to melt. In Oklahoma that is really a good plan most of the time, the only problem is that with this storm it stayed cold for several days after it. We left Shawnee on Monday (28) and managed to have a dry day of driving. That was by far the easiest drive of the trip. We managed to see a few friends on our way to Chris's mom's house, but then we just wanted to stay there for a while.
Yesterday we managed to drive back to Aurora. We left from Arkansas and it was a good thing as Oklahoma had gotten another couple of inches of snow. We were also lucky in that we didn't have to go up I-44, which of course was getting snow all day long. We hit snow about Springfield (again) and it didn't stop from there. The plows were out salting and moving snow as it was coming down. We ended up with only an inch or snow from the storm yesterday, enough to cover up all the nasty colored snow that's plowed into nice piles everywhere.
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