blizzard

Here in the Midwest, more specifically Minnesota, we joke all year about the weather. There's variety. And the temperature or type of moisture is no respecter of seasons. Snow in late April or early October. Rain (the non-freezing type) in January. Sometimes snow and rain in the same week along with their respective temperatures. I heard a weatherman once comment that a collegue of his in Florida said she could easily pick 20 changes of clothes and do all the weather for the entire month in a day because it's very predictable, static.

At Christmas, we heard for days about the worst blizzard of the decade or the century or the millenium or something. So we holed up and missed Christmas gatherings and church and last minute Christmas shopping, well not the shopping, but everything else. It snowed and blew for a couple days and made some impressive drifts in the yard. But if we would have owned a snow plow, we might have proceeded with normal activities, if anyone else would have shown up too. We could look out and see the neighbors across the road.

Last weekend was predicted a whopper of a blizzard. Ice then mounds of snow to top the mounds we already have. But the sun came out on Saturday and while I was helping Mark pull the two-wheel drive pickup out of the four inches of pure rain induced slush in the yard, I heard the storm went out. Went somewhere else. Fizzled out. Something. It didn't come this way.

On Monday, school was just late until 8:15, then it was cancelled. Prediction for the day: blowing snow advisory until 9 a.m. or noon accompanied by no more than an inch of snow. Right, we should be able to spend the afternoon outside pleasantly digging snow caves. We spent the afternoon outside alright, but not pleasantly.

In one of my very rare moments of thinking ahead, the only moment of forward thinking on my part all day, I had the kids quick get on their snowpants and gear as well as myself, we were going to run quick with the Explorer and pick up my sisters who were stranded in their Honda just a mile down the road, as the crow flies only a half mile. They were hung up on a drift, having made it through the first 69 miles of the trip to our place and the mile and half of gravel closest to us.

If that was an inch of snow blowing around, I have beach front property in West River South Dakota to sell you. Remember it had rained the weekend before: everything was completely tacked down by rain. And that wind advisory, by 11 a.m., it had been extended to 6 p.m.

By noon., we had abandoned one small vehicle, piled into a larger one full of small children and headed out. Or tried to. By 1 p.m. we were up to the axle in snow, that inch (or three) of snow was blowing with horrendous ferocity and we were stuck in from the north and the south. By 3:30, we were rescued by the trusty Wagoneer (whose very existence would make Al Gore break out in hives due to its "environmentally" unfriendly nature) and were warming ourselves in the neighbors entryway. By six, we were home already, thanks completely to the neighbor who blew us a path home.

All I can say is God did answer our prayers, He just did it in a more creative way that we were envisioning. We prayed the blowing would let up enough for us to see three feet in front of the vehicle, enough to get out and through. He provided a vehicle we already owned and a gracious neighbor with a tractor and blower. And as the wind howled and the snow plastered our vehicles, we made it out and through. Home.

And those smart cars and green cars and other such poor excuses for vehicles, well they are fine for those who live in the lands of one season. OR those who only travel once yearly (read: July) for groceries. Out here in the real world, we need real vehicles. Ones that frequent the gas station frequently and belch out black stuff in the snow around the exhaust pipe.

Where we live, those are the vehicles that are environmentally friendly.