Trying to get out of Virginia

After Tyler finished his finals on December 18th, we had planned on leaving bright and early the next morning to head back to the Midwest to visit our families for the holidays. However, Mother Nature had other plans! Although Virginia, especially southern Virginia, rarely sees any appreciable snowfall, on the one day when we wanted to leave Virginia experienced a true blizzard, dumping record-breaking amounts of snow right along Interstate 64. Since we were skeptical of how well Virginians would handle the snow, we postponed our departure until Sunday thinking that surely after having a full day to clear and salt the roads we would have no problem traveling. Apparently, the was a VERY inaccurate assumption!

We learned several lessons on the drive:

1. Virginians ABSOLUTELY cannot drive in the snow.
2. Virginia must have approximately 4 snow plows.
3. Toyota Corollas are NOT off-road vehicles (and therefore, do not do well in 8 inches of snow and ice).
4. When an idiot impatiently passes you and flies by going way too fast and then you pass them a mile down the road in the ditch, I am ashamed to admit that yes, I did laugh at them and didn’t really feel bad for them.
5. As much as our VERY long day of driving sucked, I am grateful that we were not one of the drivers of the 83 cars in the ditch, 40 + stranded semis, or 5 overturned semis.
6. Despite all of the stereotypes about West Virginia , it is possible to be thrilled to be entering West Virginia, where they know what snow is, how to plow it, and how to drive in it.

Because I was stuck in the back seat trying to entertain Cade and Tyler was just trying to keep from going off the road we didn’t get any pictures of the snowy conditions – but it was quite an experience to say the least!

Here is Cade trying to help Dad with the driving.

(Don’t worry we aren’t really delinquent parents, this was at a rest stop.)