How Are We Alive?

So I messed up again on the order of postings. Go two more down to start at the beginning of my tale. So here is what we woke up to at Tucumcari Thursday morning. We had figured the night before that it would take the 3 1/2 days to get there. This storm changed all that. I am from UT. I don't like driving in the snow and recognize it can be scary, but I can handle them. This storm wasn't like any other storm I have been in.

As we rolled out, the other hotel guests wished us luck. I didn't understand why until we got on the road out of the town. I don't even know where to start to describe it. The wipers became icicles and were useless. At one point there was a block of ice 2 1/2" thick between the end of the wiper and the windshield. The snow falling immediately became ice on the window. There was no visibility, even if you had a clean window. The wind blew terribly and it was awful. I had a 4"x4" square in the lower middle of the dashboard clear enough to see through. I was so grateful that the back of the moving truck Joseph drove was bright blue. I followed that and that is how I got through safely. There were a few minutes that I couldn't even see him and I truly felt clausterphobic and almost had a panic attack. I don't know how he did it. One of his wipers broke off, but I guess they had been useless in the first place. We pulled over to de-ice the wipers almost every 30 min. for the first half of the day. We then learned to use a cool defroster and not use the wipers. I called my family to see if they could see the storm on the internet and see when we would be out of it. We were in the middle of the storm until Sat. morning all across NM, TX, AR, OK, TN. At times we could see but the roads were terrible. We barely got through Amarillo, TX before the closed the roads. The locals did nothing to the roads. As the local news said, they were going to let Mother Nature take her course in thawing the roads. Absolutley no help to us traveling in it. Thursday night it took forever to find a place to eat because everything was closed due to the ice storm. The next morning it took an hour to prepare the vehicles for travel, including chipping the ice to open the doors. Friday morning we headed into the storm again. It was just awful. That night we stopped for dinner and planned on traveling 2 more hours after dinner to Memphis, TN. We got back on the road just to stop on the freeway no more than 5 min. later. 20 minutes later as traffic started to creep along, we realized the roads were coated with thick ice. Joseph was determined to make Memphis. I thought he was crazy, our fastest speed was 10 mph and it was 112 miles to there, not to mention it was suicidal to drive on the ice in the dark. After 2 hours and not even 20 miles later, he decided it was crazy to continue through the night into the morning to get to Memphis. Saturday-we drove 18 hrs and finally reached our home. 3 1/2 of those hours were spent sitting on the freeway because of so many rolled semi's and the ice. Joseph got out to get a movie from the van and slid all over walking to us. We had no idea how we were able to drive on it while he was barely able to walk on it. It took us (including the 2 hours the day earlier and standing still time) 10 hours to make the 2 hour trip to Memphis. After Memphis the roads were fine and we drove on determined to get home late that night. And we did, very late at 2 am, after I got pulled over because the cop couldn't see the temporary license plate in the window because of the dirt from the storm. Wouldn't complain about it but he shined his flashlight and woke both the boys up for the last 1 1/2 of the trip. Sorry about the long story, but it was a long trip. We are so blessed that we never got in an accident. Also that Joseph was able to get out the many times he got stuck in parking lots and such. He almost slid off the off-ramp down the side of a hill, but it was another blessing that he was able to pull himself back on the road. We hope to never make a trip like that again!

One of the clearest times of my windshield.
Amongst my terror, I laughed seeing a sign advertising that this cross (the largest in the Northern Hemisphere) was guaranteed to give me the most memorable spiritual experience.

An iced over gas pump. Sometimes we had to de-ice them in order to use one.

Ice collecting on the van.

The beautiful car after being drug through the storm.Here are just a few of the many rolled semi's on Saturday. They came up one after another

after another

after another

after another

after another

It was kind of cool to drive across and see the Mississippi River. I remember learning about it in Social Studies in elementary school. I was really excited to see it for myself.

the Mississippi

And then we arrived at our new home, where the adventure/nightmare continued....I will give you a break from reading and post about it later!