The Drive

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I have been really busy with the holidays, family, travel, etc. Ok, so I basically have been lazy because I could have posted while on vacation in Wisconsin, but when I am on vacation I am pretty lazy and don’t want to do much. So, I have a lot of catching up to do and one post just won’t cut it so to update everyone on our Christmas vacation it will take two or more posts. I will start with our drive.

Yes, we drove again this year. I know we said we wouldn’t do it again after last year’s drive, but we did, and of course it sucked again. The important thing is that we got to spend the holidays with our families and our baby girls, Izzy and Madison. We left the house on December 17th at 3pm and arrived in Madison at 8pm on December 18th. Again, we drove straight through and it took 28 hours for a 26 hour drive. Between the two of us we did it no problem. We probably could have done it in the normal 26 hours if Madison didn’t take her sweet time to go to the bathroom at every pit stop.

I remember I was a super trooper last year as I drove my half. I don’t believe I quite made my goal of driving 50% of the time. I will have to guess-timate that I put in a solid 9 hours on the way there. I do want to comment that Andy pretty much took over the driving and every time I asked if I could drive he said he was fine and kept on going. I wasn’t about to complain, but it was nice to drive because it was pretty much the only thing that entertained me in the car.

The drive there went pretty smoothly, except for Oklahoma. On the way there Andy woke me up at 5am to tell me he was getting pulled over. I asked how fast he was going and he informed me that he was going 76 in a 70mph zone. I was shocked to see he was getting pulled over. Andy roles down his window and proceeds to get his wallet ready for the officer. The officer got on his horn and ordered Andy to step out of the car with his license. Then tells him to walk toward the patrol car and get in the passenger side. At this point all I could do was laugh uncontrollably. I wouldn’t have laughed if I thought he would get a ticket, but I didn’t think that would happen for only 6 miles an hour over. I could see Andy in the patrol car plain as day because we were parked under a street light and the red and blue flashing lights were also pretty bright. The sight of Andy in a patrol car was pretty hilarious. He came back to our car with a written warning. It was interesting that the written warning didn’t say his speed, but instead said he was speeding. I thought that was a bit odd that he didn’t say six miles over. Andy said the officer asked him what he was in a hurry for. Andy was a little shocked by the question and had a smart ass comment for him, but decided that was not the best route to go. The officer also asked him if he owned his vehicle and then told him to slow down before letting him out of the patrol car. Too funny! Apparently on the speed limit signs it says 70 Minimum 40 No Tolerance. I guess they really mean no tolerance, or this bored officer had nothing to do in his po-dunk town in OK when he saw out of state license plates and decided to entertain himself.

Our drive home wasn’t too bad either, that is until we hit Oklahoma again. Oklahoma received 14 inches of snow on Christmas Eve and they don’t have the resources or knowledge to know what to do with that amount of snow, so they decided to do nothing. Two days later as I am approaching Oklahoma at 8pm I completely hit big chunks of solid ice. Approaching the ice it looked like slush or big piles of snow, but as soon as I hit them I realized it was frozen solid. The whole interstate was like this. It was insane. I couldn’t believe a state would let their roads go for two days like this. It was extremely dangerous and I was freaking out as I was driving. It would be clear for a bit, and then all of a sudden I would hit giant areas of covered ice chunks. Good thing we had Andy’s Jeep because my car probably would have been completely damaged or we would have joined the many other vehicles in the ditch as we slid across the ice. I approached Tulsa, OK and I was feeling relieved thinking the city should have better roads and maybe we can exit so I can take a break from the crappy interstate. Boy, was I wrong. Tulsa was just as bad, if not worse, as what I was experiencing. On top of the chunks of unplowed, now frozen, snow I had to deal with glaring ice. I could feel Andy’s Jeep just slide, tires spinning and his car was completely out of control. I was only going 35mph in some areas, but other areas I was slower than that. I couldn’t even exit to switch drivers because all the exits were not even plowed so it was a foot of ice I would have had to drive over. I was not about to chance that so I kept on going as I gripped the steering wheel. The first chance I got to pull off the road I did and we switched drivers as I calmed my nerves. I drove in that crap for two hours. All I have to say is Oklahoma sucks. They pull drivers over for their entertainment purposes and they do not plow or salt their roads after a snow storm.

Unfortunately, since I was done driving shortly after Tulsa this put me in the worst shift of 2am to 7am. I don’t know how Andy has done it before because it was tough. I did it and we made it home safe and sound. Again, just like the drive there Andy took over so I did not do my fair share of the driving, especially not after my OK experience. I would guess that I put in another solid 9 hours of driving on the way home.