Storm Follows Blizzard of Warnings

My parents asked us not to go, the weather forecaster warned against it, and the advisers didn't advise it, but "What the heck," we thought. "Let's try it."
John and our seven children drove to St. Charles, IL,
where I grew up, to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and several of my sisters and brothers.
We had a great time. Sunday came too soon, but when it arrived it was time to start the 450 mile drive back to Omaha.
The Iowa forecast for blizzardlike conditions wasn't encouraging, but we needed to get going. The older kids had school on Monday, John had to go to work and I had laundry. So we set out.
Despite the heavy rain that was falling in northern Illinois, we were able to move along until we crossed the Mississippi River. The weather changed dramatically for the worse. Patrick said, "If these are blizzardlike conditions, I sure hope we don't run into blizzard conditions."
Cars were sliding off the interstate, some were spinning around in front of us, and trucks were overturning. After 10 minutes of watching these adventures and praying that we would not become participants in them, I said, "Let's stop." John agreed.
We could barely see a small hotel off in the distance. We drove to it. The parking lot was jammed with cars and trucks.
John went inside to see if we could get a room. He was gone for 45 minutes, but it seemed longer.
I spent the time counting the number of windows in the motel and trying to count the number of cars in the parking lot to determine if there would be enough rooms to go around. It wasn't a very scientific survey because the windshield was nearly iced over.
When John Finally emerged holding keys to the motel's last double rooms, I was so grateful. I'd had visions of bedding everyone down in a gas station between the tire display and the windshield wiper refills.
After we got situated, John and Patrick went to the gas station to get some food- the motel didn't have a restaurant. They returned with a junk food junkie's dream: potato chips, corn chips, popcorn, candy bars and cans of pop.
As the day dragged on, more stranded folks stopped at the motel, Unfortunately, they weren't able to get rooms.
As the hall began filling up, Maureen and Machaela acted like Red Cross volunteers. They gave the weary travelers the chairs from our room, they passes out popcorn and offered soft drinks, They invited people into our room to watch television and use the bathroom.
I encouraged this hospitality and even made my own disaster relied overtures. I felt a twinge of guilt that I had a place to sleep and they didn't.
On Monday morning it didn't take us long to get ready to go. Everyone had slept dressed. The lock on our cartop carrier was frozen shut so we had to get along without our pajamas and toothbrushes.
When we set out the wind had died down, the sky was blue and the interstate had just been reopened for travel, but the roads were still slick. We drove the first 60 miles in three hours. I spent the whole time telling John how to drive, saying Hail Marys and holding onto Colleen, who was sitting next to me.
How did our children act? They were remarkably good, especially the two youngest, Mike and Peter, who slept most of the time. At one point, Johnny started complaining about the location of his seat.
Patrick told him, "Don't crab, you might make Dad go off the road. See that car in the ditch? It probably had a crab riding in it."
During the rest of the trip, every time Johnny saw a car off the road he'd say. " They must have been really crabby."
When we finally arrived home Monday night from our Thanksgiving trip, we all agreed we had something new to be thankful for.
Do we have any Christmas travel plans? no. The farthest we plan to venture is out to the front yard to see if Santa's sleigh is flying over head.
December 18, 1985