Getting from Point A to Point B isn’t usually a big deal. And usually the good folk at the weather desk have a clue as to what’s up. Not this time. This time, they were clearly hitting the wacky weed.
When we left my parent’s house, the weather outside was indeed frightful. It was sleeting and snowing but my Dad assured us that it would be warming and that we were clear to drive. Because the weather people PROMISED.
Everyone knows that they never get it wrong.
I was dubious. I went out to the porch, slipped on the old wood boards, and nearly busted my ass.
Didn’t seem like good touring weather.
But, we only had to go three hours to Kate’s fam-peeps in PA. Not a biggie. Not a deal.
The roads were slushee brown and travel was 35 mph. Kate drove her little BMW convertible at warp speed, white knuckled. It wasn’t long before it became clear that this trip was Bad News. Pile ups were everywhere. Trucks flipped on roofs. Cars in medians. Cars in ditches. Totally commonplace carnage. The precip alternated between sleet, snow, and freezing rain.
So to make a tense situation light, we began to bicker. Kate desperately wanted to get to her parents’ home. I desperately wanted to live.
Then all the parents were texting non stop, calling, weighing in. In the interim, my phone was dying, we were skidding and Walker was stressed by the bickering and the conditions she saw on the roads.
When the sleet turned to thick snow and the precip mounted, we decided to book a hotel and my parents found us one and secured it for us. Very helpful and kind. Thanks Wilde Bill & Crazy Jeanie!
Spending the holiday at the Holiday Inn. With a heated indoor pool: win.
We made it to the hotel! Big Yay!
Then we got stuck in the hotel parking lot, in eight inches, wheels spinning. Kate got out of the driver’s seat. I took the wheel. She rocked the car with me alternately gasing and letting gravity roll. Finally, the thing rocked loose and rolled back and forth, back and forth. I let the car roll back for a time, found a tread path and circled the lot and anchored us to a thick snow bank. Done and done. We were moored.
Anything now was hoofing it.
When we left the hotel room, K&W got a head start on me and headed to the lot where they hurled snowballs at my hotel window, made snow angels in the lot and started building a snow-woman. Unfortunately, they misgauged the room and hurled ice balls at the room near us and startled the staff.
We met that lady on the elevator and she was amused. We apologized.
Skidded to the Skeetz gas station on foot and bought some paint-thinner quality red wine. Our faces were beet red from the horizontal driving sleet. For the trip back, we wrapped our faces in scarves. Skidded back to the hotel, got into the “refinishing sauce” and Walker and I hit the pool.
It was such a sauna in there that two younger kids kept dashing into the courtyard to bring in large ice balls to toss into the pool.
And for our dining adventure, we skated across the parking lot to the Kobe Japanese steakhouse for dinner to celebrate making it this far. In one piece. Without tow trucks. Without killing each other.
Amen.
Even though we only made it halfway to our destination today. But what’s the cliche about the journey and not the end point?
Because sometimes, halfway home is just fine.
