Christmas Day 2009

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Greetings from Plainview, Texas! DD-Kr, Chas, D.A., and I left , a little later than planned, today. We loaded my "sleigh" with a bundle of toys, food, luggage, and other good things. Just looking at the mound of proposed items to be loaded, was enough to make us falter at first. However, we did manage to get everything in, except one box of craft items meant to keep the children busy in case of truly inclement weather.
We had a glorious start to the day, leaving after the children opened their presents at home. Kr is the navigator and the boys do the backseat driving. The roads were clean and dry, traffic was light, and the boys had new books. A wonderful beginning.
We began seeing snow on the ground as we passed by houses and fields on the way, but the roads were clear and dry. Right around Post, Texas, we noticed snow on the road. It was all downhill from there. We found a roadside park , dripping with melting snow. We made sandwiches and ate them, standing by cold wet benches, while huddling to shelter from a bitingly cold wind. Ham sandwiches for Christmas Day lunch tasted pretty good. We plan to have a more traditional meal and celebration when we are all together in Colorado.
We picked our way carefully along US 84, avoiding the snow berms left by the plows, and maneuvering to avoid cars and drivers who thought they were immortal. Only one really close call as a large pickup truck tried to speed past. I saw him coming and knew there was nowhere to go if he slid, so I slowed and pulled as far to the right as I safely could without hitting the snow berms on my right. As the speeding truck approached on my left, he hit the snowy, icy area, throwing up a large amount of the displaced berm onto our car, The windshield was almost occluded, but the mess triggered the automatic windshield wipers which allowed me to keep both hands on the wheel as I struggled to stay on the road. The truck slid back and forth, until its wheels finally grabbed the road and he moved on.
I managed to stay apart from most other vehicles for the remainder of the time. Almost everyone was driving very conservatively, encouraged, perhaps, by the 25 cars we saw that had slid off the road and were stuck in snow on the sides of the road. We decided to stop for the night. The threat of more black ice on the roads and drivers who refused to acknowledge their vulnerability in the face of Mother Nature's superiority, forced us to choose a safe haven in Plainview. The motel is almost full now and we are looking forward to a leisurely start tomorrow, after the roads are clearer.
Wish us luck.