Not that anyone knew I was gone! LOL. My family traveled to stay with my parents during the past few days and we got home about four or five hours ago. We came home to a nice 2 - 3 inch layer of snow to blow (on top of a nice, slick sheet of pure ice) with my Spirit snowblower! Yay, just what I wanted to do today!
Anyway, it was great to see my parents. My dad had a stroke in October, and is recovering well. My dad 'retired' as a full time pastor over a decade ago, but that didn't mean for an instant that he stopped doing what he does! He became the "part-time" pastor of a small country church, and has been doing that for the past ten years. As the people down there always tell me, he's not a "part time" pastor for the church. He's always doing what he does, being who he is, and I suspect he never ever had any sort of "time card." :) Anyway... my mom had previously told me that my dad planned on 'retiring' from this church next spring, but with the stroke and all, he decided to do it at the end of this year, which is, of course, upon us.
The sad thing is that he wasn't able to take the service on Christmas Day, so my mom (also a retired pastor) took it for him, and he was also not able to do his final service this morning (which we weren't able to be there for), so my mom also did that. Everyone understood, of course.
Now... if we'd have known what the weather was going to do, we'd have stayed there one more day and would have been there for the final service! We started out yesterday in very pleasant 70º weather (just southwest of St. Louis). We headed up north about half an hour, and the skies were looking VERY dark. It became very, very windy and a bit rainy. I decided to go back to the town we'd just gone through and wait things out. Turns out a tornado hit just a few miles away! Well, after a bit, we got going again and mostly ran into rain, but the winds had died down, thankfully. Onward to Iowa, and we began seeing all the snow we had left behind a few days before.
The temperature had been dropping all throughout our trip. Rain was still coming down lightly, and as we got just south of Iowa City (75 miles from home), the temp was 32º (0ºC - freezing), and we had heard that there would be light, icy rain. It was indeed light, but it was enough to cause some HUGE problems! We were driving along as normal, but then suddenly I felt as if our van had just slid a little to the side. I let off the gas, and slowed down, and I noticed us sliding a tiny bit more. Very quickly, the other vehicles around us slowed down. All within 30 seconds, we dropped from a comfortable 70 mph to a very scary 30 - 40 mph. Then, even at that speed, we were sliding, so I had to drop down to 20 - 30 mph --- on the interstate!
Such a short distance to get home - but yet so FAR with all this ice. Suddenly we saw a pickup on the other side of the interstate go off into the median and almost onto our side. We then knew this weather was NOT for us to be driving in! We passed one exit to Iowa City, but then on the next one I pulled off, very slowly. It then took us almost 15 minutes to drive three miles to the nearest motel! Cars were sliding all over the place, even in town.
But... we arrived at a motel, and we were safe for the night. And... they had Douwe Egberts DELICIOUS coffee out in the lobby! Mmmmm... and Ahhhhh... The evening also turned out to be such a fun time for the kids! After we got settled, we slid (walked) over to a nearby restaurant, Old Chicago, and the food was absolutely splendiferous! I had a nice, relaxing beer before the meal came (they only had 110 to choose from), and we played along with a trivia game that was on some of the TV screens. Just down the street from us, the Iowa Hawkeye basketball team was beginning a home game, and so we watched that on TV at the restaurant. It was my little girl, Noelle's eighth birthday and she said it was her best birthday ever! They brought her a Little Big Cookie and some ice cream for dessert, and we all shared that.
Then, back to the motel for some more fun, just kickin' back and watching TV, etc, watching the weather reports. Yeah, back to the weather. It was absolutely terrible out. Lots of accidents and vehicles in ditches. When we checked out this morning and got back on the highway, there were still lots and lots of cars in the ditches from last night. I'd estimate that in the 75 miles we drove, we saw at least 30 vehicles in the ditches. We saw one semi that had slid into a very shallow ditch and we saw a U-Haul-type truck (at least 26') on its side in the median. On a couple of the deeper ditches, that go waaaay down there, we saw some cars as well. THAT would've been scary! I'm so glad we just decided to stay in Iowa City for the night. I was supposed to work today, and my wife Tracey was supposed to work at church (which is why we planned on coming home yesterday), but we called and got substitutes.
Anyway... I'm glad to have been able to spend some time with my parents during Christmas, and I'm glad to be home safe and sound! There are 139 unread blog posts in my feedreader. I'll get caught up soon... NOT! I'm just gonna clear 'em and start fresh! Hope y'all don't mind! Happy belated Christmas to all!
Grace Roots Blog
Showing posts with label icy roads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label icy roads. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Ice Ice Baby - Won't You Be My Neighbor
First... What a strange and exhausting day today has been. I think I'll vent about it!
Then... Videos below!
Today has been a strange and exhausting day! A major ice storm has plastered most of Iowa, and I had the "pleasure" of driving in it for several hours for my job. I knew I was in for it when the forecast had been calling for the ice advisory to last from 6am to 3pm, and my job goes from 7am to 3:30pm! The winter weather advisory actually lasts through tomorrow morning, but the ice/sleet/snow mixture was pretty much during the hours of my job.
The day didn't start out too bad. Yesterday evening, with perfectly dry roads, I did some planning and took care of some stuff so I wouldn't have to do it today. So I set out ahead of schedule, making my first stop in my own vehicle. I had called the hospital to make sure they didn't have anything I needed to bring to my first stop, and they told me there was nothing. I made that first stop and then went to the hospital to drop some things off. It's usually a 20 minute drive, but today it was more like 35 minutes, which I expected due to the weather. But then the trouble started. At the hospital, they proceeded to tell me that there was indeed something that needed to go to that first stop! One of the overnight people had missed it, so when I had called, no one knew about it.
So I went to the garage to get a van I usually use on the weekends. By this time it was "icing" pretty good, and I set off on the highway to go back to my first stop. Pretty soon I found my windshield becoming very iced-over, and I wondered why that was happening so quickly. Turns out the heater wasn't working in this van!
Snap!
I had to drive all the way back to the garage to get another van, stopping a couple of times to scrape ice off the windshield. After starting out "ahead," I was now way behind and the forecast was calling for ice all day.
(Iowa has every sort of weather you can imagine. I really, really like having all the seasons, and even though the winters can make my job a little tough, I still really like it. However... days like this can be very irritating!)
So I got in another van that I don't normally drive, and I got the spare key out of the locker to keep in my pocket just in case. In fact, I put the 'regular' key (with buttons to automatically lock and unlock the doors) in my pocket so I could keep the van running all day and keep it locked while I stopped at my places for a few minutes at a time. Well, I stuck the regular key in the van and backed out of the garage. I put the van with the bad heater in the garage and I put my own car in the garage to keep it from getting ice build-up on it. I got back in the new van and started it, and it died right away. I started it again, and it died. And a third time.
MAN! What's UP today??? It was one of those, "GOD, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME!" moments. ;) Back in the day I would've thought He was perhaps punishing me for something. But today I know that sometimes stuff just happens! Well anyway, fortunately I remembered hearing someone a few years ago talk about how the spare key only serves to lock and unlock the vehicle but won't let you drive it. I didn't understand how I was able to back it out of the garage, but I decided to try the other key anyway. Vrooooom.
Ahhhh! At last I could get going. And this is where my 3 hour, 80 mile journey began. My first stop was about 40 miles from the hospital. It was very slow-going. Hey, maybe God's really trying to settle me in this "slow cook" thing. Haha! I arrived at this nursing home, and when I came out of the building, the sleet/ice was still coming down pretty good and someone shouted over to me... "Either they pay you really good money or you're CRAZY!" It's definitely not the first one, and I smiled and told the guy I'm just crazy I guess! And that's when I decided that I would call ahead and ask some of my people if they really needed me today, and I was able to "get out of" a lot of driving. Most Saturdays I drive anywhere from 150 to 200 miles.
Man, I tell ya, the ice did not let up for a minute today! And after it had accumulated a lot, and there had been sort of an ice/snow mixture in the early afternoon, the roads became slightly less slick, but yet the accumulated parts had hardened and you pretty much had to stay in the set of tire tracks that had formed in each lane. If you tried to switch lanes, you were quickly pulled back into your lane! It was very frustrating. On a certain four lane road, I tried to slow down to change lanes, but that wouldn't give me enough "power" to get over the rut. So I would speed up, but that greatly increased the risk of going off the road!
I have to say... yes I am sort of crazy because I do get somewhat of a rush out of this winter weather driving. But days like today can really take a toll on me mentally, with the various snafus as well as the constant decision making involved with navigating icy roads, as well as physically. I know my arms, back and legs will be feeling it in the morning. You just don't realize how many muscles you use when you drive, and how the strenuous driving really wears them out!
Even though I'm venting quite a bit here, I was able to keep a humorous mind about it all, as I usually do. I would walk in my places singing "Ice Ice Baby" or Mr. Rogers "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..." and I would give people reports of nice sunny weather and great driving conditions outside.
But all in all... I'm glad the day is over!
Time to chill and relax to Vanilla Ice...
Jim Carrey - 'White White Baby'
I used to have this record.
Mister Rogers!
Then... Videos below!
Today has been a strange and exhausting day! A major ice storm has plastered most of Iowa, and I had the "pleasure" of driving in it for several hours for my job. I knew I was in for it when the forecast had been calling for the ice advisory to last from 6am to 3pm, and my job goes from 7am to 3:30pm! The winter weather advisory actually lasts through tomorrow morning, but the ice/sleet/snow mixture was pretty much during the hours of my job.
The day didn't start out too bad. Yesterday evening, with perfectly dry roads, I did some planning and took care of some stuff so I wouldn't have to do it today. So I set out ahead of schedule, making my first stop in my own vehicle. I had called the hospital to make sure they didn't have anything I needed to bring to my first stop, and they told me there was nothing. I made that first stop and then went to the hospital to drop some things off. It's usually a 20 minute drive, but today it was more like 35 minutes, which I expected due to the weather. But then the trouble started. At the hospital, they proceeded to tell me that there was indeed something that needed to go to that first stop! One of the overnight people had missed it, so when I had called, no one knew about it.
So I went to the garage to get a van I usually use on the weekends. By this time it was "icing" pretty good, and I set off on the highway to go back to my first stop. Pretty soon I found my windshield becoming very iced-over, and I wondered why that was happening so quickly. Turns out the heater wasn't working in this van!
Snap!
I had to drive all the way back to the garage to get another van, stopping a couple of times to scrape ice off the windshield. After starting out "ahead," I was now way behind and the forecast was calling for ice all day.
(Iowa has every sort of weather you can imagine. I really, really like having all the seasons, and even though the winters can make my job a little tough, I still really like it. However... days like this can be very irritating!)
So I got in another van that I don't normally drive, and I got the spare key out of the locker to keep in my pocket just in case. In fact, I put the 'regular' key (with buttons to automatically lock and unlock the doors) in my pocket so I could keep the van running all day and keep it locked while I stopped at my places for a few minutes at a time. Well, I stuck the regular key in the van and backed out of the garage. I put the van with the bad heater in the garage and I put my own car in the garage to keep it from getting ice build-up on it. I got back in the new van and started it, and it died right away. I started it again, and it died. And a third time.
MAN! What's UP today??? It was one of those, "GOD, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME!" moments. ;) Back in the day I would've thought He was perhaps punishing me for something. But today I know that sometimes stuff just happens! Well anyway, fortunately I remembered hearing someone a few years ago talk about how the spare key only serves to lock and unlock the vehicle but won't let you drive it. I didn't understand how I was able to back it out of the garage, but I decided to try the other key anyway. Vrooooom.
Ahhhh! At last I could get going. And this is where my 3 hour, 80 mile journey began. My first stop was about 40 miles from the hospital. It was very slow-going. Hey, maybe God's really trying to settle me in this "slow cook" thing. Haha! I arrived at this nursing home, and when I came out of the building, the sleet/ice was still coming down pretty good and someone shouted over to me... "Either they pay you really good money or you're CRAZY!" It's definitely not the first one, and I smiled and told the guy I'm just crazy I guess! And that's when I decided that I would call ahead and ask some of my people if they really needed me today, and I was able to "get out of" a lot of driving. Most Saturdays I drive anywhere from 150 to 200 miles.
Man, I tell ya, the ice did not let up for a minute today! And after it had accumulated a lot, and there had been sort of an ice/snow mixture in the early afternoon, the roads became slightly less slick, but yet the accumulated parts had hardened and you pretty much had to stay in the set of tire tracks that had formed in each lane. If you tried to switch lanes, you were quickly pulled back into your lane! It was very frustrating. On a certain four lane road, I tried to slow down to change lanes, but that wouldn't give me enough "power" to get over the rut. So I would speed up, but that greatly increased the risk of going off the road!
I have to say... yes I am sort of crazy because I do get somewhat of a rush out of this winter weather driving. But days like today can really take a toll on me mentally, with the various snafus as well as the constant decision making involved with navigating icy roads, as well as physically. I know my arms, back and legs will be feeling it in the morning. You just don't realize how many muscles you use when you drive, and how the strenuous driving really wears them out!
Even though I'm venting quite a bit here, I was able to keep a humorous mind about it all, as I usually do. I would walk in my places singing "Ice Ice Baby" or Mr. Rogers "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..." and I would give people reports of nice sunny weather and great driving conditions outside.
But all in all... I'm glad the day is over!
Time to chill and relax to Vanilla Ice...
Jim Carrey - 'White White Baby'
I used to have this record.
Mister Rogers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)