Apparently, I made some of y'all worry with my travel plans.

Apparently, I made some of y'all worry with my travel plans.  I'm really sorry if that was the case.

I left Cincy on Wednesday - the day before the cold / snowy / windy weather hit.  At some point early in the trip I turned on location tracking and sent it to Shaun so he always knew where I was.  I hate talking on the phone when I'm driving and I don't text and drive, so that saved us both some frustration.  😂  I drove for about 12 hours and made it to Wichita, KS.  The weather was still fine, but it was dark and I was tired so I was done for the night.  Plus, I was in a city and the odds of finding somewhere to stay were high.  The plan was to NOT be stranded in the car since we knew the weather was coming overnight and the next morning, so Shaun booked me a room and sent me the address and I went there.

Shaun is the planner in the family; it's not me.  So he kept an eye on the weather reports and I chilled down in the hotel room because I needed the sleep and was getting a headache.  I woke up a few times in the night; the wind was strong and the snow was coming down.  In the morning when I woke up (Thursday) I went to talk to the front desk and they said that the roads had been treated, but the winds were bad.  Another traveler recommended staying another day, so I did.  I wasn't thrilled about staying, but it was the smart decision.

While there I got my frozen waters and surprisingly unfrozen Soylents out of the car.  I cranked the car to make sure it was ok and cleaned the snow off of the windows.  I was shocked to find out that even negative degree cold just feels cold.  Apparently that's part of the danger of it.  It took me a while to get the windows cleaned; I had a scraper, but that's it.  And I kept having to take breaks and sit inside the car because my fingers started tingling (even with my gloves on).

At some point on Thursday Shaun told me to call 511 and get the road reports.  That line was giving me too much information to process, but it said that was an app called "CanDrive."  I'm going to admit that it took me longer than I'd like for me to realize it was "KanDrive", but anyway I got it and it was helpful.  On Friday, the roads had been treated and there was a photo of them looking clear and the wind was no longer an issue, so I checked out of the hotel and got on my way.

The roads were totally fine - just snow and some abandoned / wrecked cars on the shoulders.  By another few hours out of Wichita it didn't even look like it had snowed.  The worst part of the trip was refilling the gas; the temperature (according to my car) stayed between 8 and 15°F  for most of my trip.  I don't think it hit the 20s until I got into TX.  Once I got closer to home it was back in the 40s (which probably wasn't even the high for the day since it was evening).

Anyway, I definitely wanted to come home to be with my family.  I did NOT want to fly after flying on Thanksgiving, and driving allowed me to move home the stuff I could live without in Cincy for a few weeks.  It made sense.  I'd already cancelled my flights before I knew about this weather, but Google kept giving me notifications about delayed flights.  That sounds worse than what driving (even with the weather) turned out to be.

For anyone who worried over me - I do apologize, but Shaun and I make a great team (even when we're not physically together) and we try to make good decisions. The way we had things planned, the worst case for me would have been more time in a hotel.  I let him know when I was starting to get tired of driving and he booked me a hotel room in the nearest city and sent me the coordinates.  I know that things don't always go as planned, but we are not big risk takers at all.  I will admit that traveling so much is new to me, but in general I'm pretty good at driving in straight lines, so it's all good.  😊