A Scary Night

While we were in Pittsburgh, we took a trip over to Ohio to see TJ and Brian. We watched the local news and the weather channel before to see what to expect. The weatherman said 51 and rainy. We can handle that. We got there fine and had a nice visit. We headed to the mall to hit the Lego store and Build a Bear. While waiting in line, Judy called and said a snow storm was hitting Pittsburgh and that we should get on the road. We quickly stuffed Seth's puppy, whom he named Build, and got rode back to the house with the guys. We said our goodbyes and got on the road. The storm was already starting!!

The roads were terrible - first ice, then snow, the both. At times we were going less that 20 in a 70 mph zone. We slipped, we slid, we almost got stuck. We laughed, I cried - twice actually. Seth slept the entire trip. At one point we pulled over to give a stranded kid a ride and almost couldn't get out of the drifts. Finally it had gotten so bad the we decided to get a hotel at the next exit. Before we could get there, we found ourselves stuck on a mountain. There must have been wrecks - we saw many - and we were at a dead stop in traffic for an hour and a half!

Once we started moving again, we decided to keep going. From all the traffic, there was a pretty good path in the road. That didn't last too long though and we were creeping along. We kinda got excited when we realized we were only 60 miles from Grandma's, but that didn't last long. At 20 mph it would take another 3 hours.

We got to her town at about 2 am. The winding roads were covered in thick snow and were about the only car on the road. There is something very creepy about driving on a silent, snowy night, passing abandoned cars in the snow drifts and not knowing if you will be next. We got to the neighborhood 8 hours after we began what should have been a three hour trip. I felt like Gilligan. "A three hour tour." ♪♫

We pulled through her steep neighborhood and Mark almost pulled into her driveway. We were afraid we might slide down and keep on going to the lower level so we decided to circle the block and find a parking spot on the street. We went up a hill and our wheels started to spin. I couldn't believe we had come so far and were going to get stuck now. Mark ended up backing down the hill and turning around. We found a spot about 10 houses down and walked in the eight inch snow to the house. I was so relieved to be safe at last at Grandma's. It's always safe and warm there!

This was one of the scariest things I have ever been through and I am so grateful that we made it home safely. Mark did an awesome job driving in the treacherous storm with a semi-hysterical wife. My whole world was in that car and Mark kept us all safe!