Jaci Dawn

I don’t have a photo of today’s snow, but I thought you’d enjoy a photo of Murphy on the trail with Don. Not even sure what trail they are on, but there’s a lot of ice in that photo. Don takes great photos.

So. Snow.

This is bound to be a long story, but I think that is allowable as it was a long commute home. Five and a half hours, to be exact.

It started this morning. Don called in sick. So I had my choice of vehicles. Normally, I would just take my truck because I like my stick shift even if it doesn’t have a reliable heater. The weather channel said “freezing fog” in Oregon City, but I knew that by the time I got off the hill, the roads would be clear. I hesitated. Truck. Explorer. Useless. Four Wheel Drive.

In the end, I took the 4×4. No reason why, just it seemed to be the thing to do. Sometimes, that is how God talks to you. You don’t even know He is talking to you, you just do what He tells you to do. It’s so easy to miss the boat. I almost did.

Around 2 today, I received an email from the receptionist at work: SNOW. I turned around and looked out the windows. Yep, snow. Snow doesn’t bother me. Much. And this was supposed to scour out in the early afternoon with a warm rain. At 3, my boss (who took the afternoon off) called to tell me thta it would be OK to leave early. Use my discretion. Then the Big Boss sent out an email telling us tyo use our discretion: if we had a long commute, leave early.

There was about an inch of it on the ground and nothing to concern me, but I checked the ODOT (Oregon Dept. of transportation) site and looked at the freeways. Parking lot. I decided to leave by 3:30. There was an inch on the ground.

In the Willamette Valley an inch of snow can be deceptive. It can be slick as snot (sorry, it’s just the euphemism that comes to mind) or just your average dry snow fall. This was slick. I made it to the bank within half an hour (it’s a ten-minute drive on dry roads). Already, it was slick. I looked west on Lower Boones Ferry Road and could see there was already an accident on the hill and traffic was only going one direction: toward the east.

I decided to go east and through Lake Oswego. Took me almost 45 minutes to get 3 miles and I realised another wreck was up ahead. Traffic wasn’t moving. I turned around and headed west. I found a side road and skittled over to where I started out. Took me exactly 2 hours to get back there from the time I left work. I-5 Southbound was a parking lot, but so was Lower Boones Ferry Rd.

90 minutes later, I had traveled only a few miles. The three inches of snow that had accumulated on the hood of the 4×4 was melting. The snow on the freeway/parking lot had morphed to ice. And now rain was falling on the ice. Even though I had the rig in 4-low, every time I had to step on the brakes (every car length or so), I slipped sideways. There’s just that much weight in an Ford Explorer. I made it to the next exit and decided to pull off, grab a meal and wait 30 minutes for the ice to break up a little.

Mind you, I kept in touch with my family throughout this – for once, I am thankful for a cell phone!

I walked through the nearest Fred Meyer, bought some food I didn’t really want, then returned to the rig. I knew that if I waited, I’d chicken out. Something about second-guessing your instincts. You know how it goes? You question the sixth sense, then you disobey it. Not a good idea, because a lot of the time that is God telling you to get with the program. If you don’t believe in God, at least believe in the 6th sense. Go with it.

I got back on the road. Took me 30 minutes to get from Fred’s to the freeway (a mere half mile) because  some guy in a pick-up(!!) cut me off, then got stuck on the ice on the uphill. (I could have told him to NOT stop!!)

At least the wait did me some good: the ice was breaking up because of the chains on rigs & traffic was moving about 10 MPH. We got up to 25 once or twice (the maximum for 4-low in the Explorer). I decided to not pull over and drop it into 4-high because I knew I would have to scale the not-so-friendly hills of Oregon City.

Anyway – I made it home. Yay!