Christmas Adventures 2009

What a Christmas this was. After a week in Panama, we were home for 4 days before getting in the car to head up to Ohio to see my brother Mark, and then on to Michigan to visit Josh's family. The day we were scheduled to leave my parents (Zibah and Deeda) came over early in the morning, clad in their Christmas PJs to celebrate an early Christmas morning together. We had a wonderful time making sweet rolls, opening presents, and laying around. Zibah and Deeda stayed to watch the Grinch Stole Christmas with Dean and I before heading home.



Our plan was to leave the Friday before Christmas by 4pm and drive to Columbus, OH where Mark and his girlfriend Veronica live. We were going to spend the weekend with them before going up to Michigan for the week. We left right at 4pm, about an hour after the snow began to fall in Raleigh. Being the confident northerners that we were, we tsk-tsked the warnings of others and headed on our way. After an hour the traffic slowed and then thinned. While this normally would have been welcome (the thinning, not the slowing), we quickly discovered why all the hype about snow in the Carolinas. North Carolina has exactly 2 snow plows and both were obviously on vacation in Florida or somewhere equally far away...or at least that's what one would believe if they lived here during a snow storm. The roads went from dusted to impassable by the time we reached Winston-Salem, approximately 2 hours from our front door. We were forced to retreat to a Best Western for the night. Luckily we found a KFC nearby that had made few sandwiches several days before and offered it to us at a bargain price. We hunkered down in our room with our 14 month old son, and enjoyed the sounds of cable TV and a heater. Actually we had a nice night together. Dean was in an amiable mood and had fun flooding the bathroom then snuggling up with us on the bed. After a nice night's rest, we packed up our items and headed back out the the car only to discover that the plows had cleared the roads, but plowed us into the parking lot. Josh's superior skill and my amazing little mazda forced their way through the 6 foot high snow pile and out onto the road as the other lodgers looked on with envy. We were on our way again!

Since the 2 plows made it to NC, but obviously got tired and went back home, only part of the roads were clear, making driving quite slow. The weather was beautiful and we had had plenty of sleep so we trudged on anyway. After 5 hours, we had gone somewhere around 90 miles. Josh decided it must be my driving and took his turn behind the wheel. After a short doze, I awoke to Josh laughing and weaving in the man-made lanes around the pile-ups of cars and ice from the night before. It was like taking a boat around small islands. 2 hours later we were stopped dead in our tracks on I-77. After an hour or so we heard from another driver that the highway (a turnpike at that point) had been closed down and would remain so for the rest of the night. The National guard was said to be coming around with food, water, and gas. Stranded on the highway, in 20 degree weather, with a 1 year old. Oh Boy!

Lucky for us, this Mama was prepared for anything. I had managed to pack just about everything we owned into our station wagon for our trip to MI. We had blankets, pillows, 5 years worth of clothes, bags of food, and a jug of water. Not to mention a full tank of gas (since we hadn't traveled very far that day) and a laptop with car charger. After a lovely dinner of cereal bars, cheese sticks, and crackers we pulled out the bedding and set up our little 2x2 beds for the night. Dean did quite amazingly through all of this. He loves to play in the car and we gave him free reign. He emptied every container and refilled it, crawled from the tailgate to the steering wheel about 500 times, and went on 2 walks with Josh down the highway to watch the dogs and other kids playing in the snow. Right at 7pm though he seemed to know it was time for bed and began his nightly routine. After some struggle and some milk (thank goodness we had that too), he snuggled in the backseat with me to watch Baby Einstein on the laptop.

Around 10:30pm the brakelights suddenly started coming on and cars began to roar to life. After 7 hours of no movement we began to move! Around 2:00am we found a hotel with a room and all fell into bed together. I don't know how some parents do it, but I can not sleep with my son in the bed. Maybe it's that he is a particularly noisy and active sleeper, or maybe it's the fear of crushing him, I don't know. I slept around 1 hour or so when Dean woke right up, ready to start the day. To his defense, he had just gotten a full night's sleep. We gathered our few belongings again and crammed ourselves back into our car, which was beginning to look like a bag lady's cart. My nice order and planning had turned into a trash head and chaos.

At 11am Sunday we pulled into Mark's apartment complex, just in time to have a short lunch with veronica before she headed to her parent's house for Christmas break. So much for our nice long weekend with them. After 3 days in the car, we were ready to be at our end destination and didn't stay long ourselves. We saw the bright light at the end of the tunnel (a.k.a. the babysitters at Grammy's house that would take Dean in the morning and let us sleep in) and made our way to Onsted, MI that night. Our journey was over!

We spent the next week lounging and visiting, playing cards and eating, opening presents and laughing. What an adventure to tell. One for the books! I hope everyone had a memorable Christmas, but maybe not quite as memorable as ours! Happy New Year!