Blizzard '08

Here it is...nearly spring...and where did we find ourselves this weekend. In the middle of a BLIZZARD! Here we are dreaming of the arrival of warmer days, Tom is wearing shorts, I've got a light jacket with me because it is really great weather in P-Town. Forties, clear, and sunny. Can't ask for anything better this time of year. And then we get to Ohio. Snow blowing across the road at 40mph. Cars, trucks, semis, and police in the ditch. Traffic backed up in Columbus taking 4 times as long to get where we're going. And all this is the day before the blizzard.

But after traveling 500 miles, hearing countless crying spurts, and filling the tank 50 times, we were not going to miss Elias and Kristen's wedding. So on Saturday morning, we got up and left Iberia around 11am. It took more than 45 minutes to get to Mt. Gilead, something we can normally do in less than 15. On the way we learned what "whiteout" means, saw one semi-truck in the ditch, and learned to drive down the middle of the telephone poles since we couldn't see the edge of the road.

Semi #1 Stuck

Then the fun really started after Mt. Gilead. The highway was really clear so we figured we'd keep heading the same direction. And then we found another semi-truck in the ditch. This one had two huge tow trucks there to pull it out and they had the whole road blocked. So we figured it couldn't take that long. Wrong-o. 30 minutes later we could finally pass. And then five minutes later we ran into the same tow truck again. But this time he was in the ditch.So we made it to the freeway gas station about 2 hours after we got started. We filled up, I told the guy we'd been following that he should clean off his rear bumper because he had so much snow, nobody could see his tail-lights and filled up on some snacks.

Waiting on the Tow Truck and Semi #2

Somewhere in Morrow County

Then we jumped on the interstate where we got to follow four snow plows that were working the road in tandem. Which made for some slow going but some decent roadway. Thsi whole time we're listening to the radio and they are announcing all the closings in Columbus. So we knew we had to go to the mall because we forgot some of our dress up clothes back in P-town. Then we come to find out that Polaris is closed...no problem we'll just go to Tuttle. Yep, that was closed too. I guess we can wear t-shirts to the wedding.

4 Snowplows in Tandem

After 3.5 hours of driving, we made it to our hotel for an early check-in. Then on the way what do we see but an F-350 working on pulling another semi-truck out of the snow. Does the insanity ever end? Oh, and by the way, Target was open so we could get clothes there. Whew!

Is that a 350?!?!