Land of Cactus (No.1)

My last post was about leaving Sunday for the warm land of cactus! Here is how that went…

Sunday came in with a snowing, blowing, roar! Yep, you guessed it, another blizzard! Well I got ready to leave, and Kelly drove a few miles down the road to see how bad it was. He came home and said, “Oh it’s not that bad, you easy go 100 km/h!” So I thought well that’s not bad, I can do this. Kelly packed the vehicle with my luggage, winter clothes, and survival bag (just in case there were problems) and 15 minutes later I hit the road! Well, I got just a mile or so down the road and it was Bad! Put I kept saying I can do this, this gust of wind will let up and it’ll be better. But sad to say it only got worse, and I mean Much worse! Finally I resorted to driving on the rumble strip so that I knew I was at least on the right side of the road and in my lane! I couldn’t see Anything! And then to make matters even worse, my windshield wipers started freezing up. So I finally found a spot on the road that had some trees blocking the blowing snow, and got out and tried to bang off the ice. Then back into the vehicle creeping along, praying no semi-truck would rear end me! Finally I got to the border and they informed me the roads are closed in the states, and that I had to go back to the Canadian side!! So I turn around and inch myself off to the Canadian side and they informed me that the road was closed back to Morris!! So there I was stuck at the border! Don’t worry, I was totally calm, cool, and collected!! NOT (Just ask Kelly.) Anyway my I kept calling in about my flight and finally they canceled it and said it would go on Monday. So since a storm normally blows thro in just a couple of hours and I had no idea what time my plane would be leaving, Kelly got me a motel room in Grand Forks. Now back to sitting at the border… More and more folks were showing up there and border folks were getting tired of us sitting in there office so they got the fire guys from Emerson, a town 3 miles from there to come and lead us to the Emerson Community Hall. We got to the hall and someone had brought in soup and chili and even a bunch of games. There were about 40-50 of us there. Then the grocery man opened up the store so we could go and get more food and drinks. So we were well taken care of. Well the blizzard just didn’t want to move out, so finally the tables were turned into beds and the blankets were pulled out! (By the way, Kelly was somewhere over the ocean by then, so no talking to him.) Around 1:30AM (12 hours after I had gotten to the border) we got the wonderful news, “The roads are open!” But my luck was still out! Yes, the roads were open in Canada but not in the states! They thought they might open the state’s roads around 6:30 – 7:00! So I said forget it and went home for night! And of course the motel refused to give me back my money. But I made it thro the whole looong day safe and sound! So that was my good luck! Oh one more thing, I was actually glad the roads were closed, at least I was sitting somewhere warm and not off by the side of the road trying to stay warm with my tea lights! (Tiff you would have had to quick ship all yours to me!)

Well this is getting kind of long and I need to go make a cheese cake with Erica, so more later…