Slip Sliding Away
Well, not "away", fortunately. We didn't even do any slip-sliding really, but we saw people doing so.
We got as far as Colfax, Iowa. A bit more than half way back to Missouri Valley. We'd been seeing the electronic signs over the interstate with a snow storm warning from noon to 6am through central Iowa. Around Newton the snow started. Between Newton and Colfax it started getting worse and I could see (and feel) the snowpack starting to form on the highway. Then the first of the cars off in the ditch. And another. And a truck. Then the traffic came to a near stop as there was a car that just went off the side to the left (and a highway patrol car there to check on them right away). At this point, we checked Kathy's new GPS and figured out there was a motel just ahead about a mile. It was time to stop.
We may have been one of the first to stop and check into that motel, but then another woman came in right after us and was visibly shaken. She said she'd just avoided hitting another car that spun in front of her.
By the time I wandered back to the lobby a while later (needing to wander away from the confines of the room, even though it's decently sized), there was a line of about 10 people checking in.
We did venture out this evening to get dinner at a cafe in town, a couple miles away, and the wind is still blowing fiercely and producing some hefty drifts across the roads.
I'm assuming thing will have cleared up enough by tomorrow morning that the roads will be plowed out and salted, so things should be fine on the interstate. If we'd managed to go another 40 or 50 miles we would have missed this entirely -- the roads just west of Des Moines are reported to be clear. It sounds like this storm blew in from the southwest, as this is part of a system that I see is causing all sorts of problems in Kansas and northwest Missouri.
Anyway, we should make it to Missouri Valley just fine by early afternoon tomorrow. More then.
We got as far as Colfax, Iowa. A bit more than half way back to Missouri Valley. We'd been seeing the electronic signs over the interstate with a snow storm warning from noon to 6am through central Iowa. Around Newton the snow started. Between Newton and Colfax it started getting worse and I could see (and feel) the snowpack starting to form on the highway. Then the first of the cars off in the ditch. And another. And a truck. Then the traffic came to a near stop as there was a car that just went off the side to the left (and a highway patrol car there to check on them right away). At this point, we checked Kathy's new GPS and figured out there was a motel just ahead about a mile. It was time to stop.
We may have been one of the first to stop and check into that motel, but then another woman came in right after us and was visibly shaken. She said she'd just avoided hitting another car that spun in front of her.
By the time I wandered back to the lobby a while later (needing to wander away from the confines of the room, even though it's decently sized), there was a line of about 10 people checking in.
We did venture out this evening to get dinner at a cafe in town, a couple miles away, and the wind is still blowing fiercely and producing some hefty drifts across the roads.
I'm assuming thing will have cleared up enough by tomorrow morning that the roads will be plowed out and salted, so things should be fine on the interstate. If we'd managed to go another 40 or 50 miles we would have missed this entirely -- the roads just west of Des Moines are reported to be clear. It sounds like this storm blew in from the southwest, as this is part of a system that I see is causing all sorts of problems in Kansas and northwest Missouri.
Anyway, we should make it to Missouri Valley just fine by early afternoon tomorrow. More then.
posted by TT at
12/22/2007 07:56:00 PM
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