Snowmeggedon

So, snowmeggedon did happen, just as predicted. Madison got quite a bit of snow tuesday night. As you may recall, I was homeless by that point. All I wanted to do was curl up somewhere with a book until my friend Mary got off work, but things kept closing all around me. First I was kicked out of the library before 5:00, and then out of panera at 6. I passed a closed cold stone, smoothie king, dairy queen, quiznos. Finally, I ended up at Noodles & co. They stayed open until 8, long enough for my friend to come and for us to get a bite to eat. Then they kicked us out too. By that time we were in full blizzard/whiteout conditions, and the wind was blowing with gusto. Even though it had only been snowing a couple hours, the snow was up to the front bumpers of ours cars in the apartment's parking lot. Mary's car was full on stuck in the snow 30 feet from her garage. We shoveled and kicked the snow out of the way, trying to clear a path. With the wind it was less then pleasant, but we were cracking up laughing the entire time. Three times she got into her car and gunned it, three times I stood behind the car and pushed, and three times we gave up after moving the car an impressive ten feet and went back to shoveling again. The final time I lost my footing and ended up on my knees in the snow, but I kept pushing! We were so close! Finally, the car ended up in the garage and our ridiculously wet clothes went into the dryer.

By Wednesday, the snow had stopped and the roads were clear, but I-39 was closed down as workers rescued stranded motorists and their cars. Plus, just about every person I know emailed me to beg me to wait until Wednesday to set out. Normally, I will drive in absolutely anything, and I'm not sure it really would have been a problem, given how clear Wednesday was, but for once I gave into the voices of reason.

So, today at 7:40 am I set forth from madison in the blisteringly cold -5 degree Madison winter and headed for Peoria. The drive was easy and uneventful, except that two miles from Peoria I slid on a patch of ice and barely avoided sliding into the car stopped at the light in front of me. Small miracles. :) Tricia and I met up and consolidated our things into one car. That would be four bags of clothes, twelve pairs of shoes, two bags of personal items including shampoo, sunscreen, bug spray, makeup, and towels, a computer bag, a cooler, two bags of food (including dry pasta and cake mix - that's what happens when you're homeless), two pillows, four blankets, a down comforter, a bag of electronics like camera stuff, phone stuff, and iPod and iPad stuff, laundry detergent, emergency road gear, toilet paper, tissues, travel mugs, cameras, a little trash can, hand lotion, and half a box of pizza from last night.

Tricia also bought an iPad along with 3G capabilities. This is how I'm typing the latest blog from the passenger seat of trice's Honda crv. So please excuse the semi irregular capitalization. It is quite fun though. I can switch between this and the gps very easily, and it remembers both our destination and where I was with the blog.

We managed to leave Peoria at 3 today, and have just passed into Iowa. We have 7.5 hours to go today before we hit Lincoln Nebraska and Elle, our first couch surfing host. I emailed her yesterday and asked if it would be okay if we pushed back our arrival by a day, and she said it was fine except that she works until 10 tonight. Hence the semi late start. Also we had to get AT&T to get the 3G to work correctly.

By the way, in the past half mile we've passed FOUR semis in ditches at the side of the road, in various stages of disarray. None of them were particularly close to any other. It just seemed like they had fallen asleep at the wheel and then either veered to the right into the ditch, or veered left across the median into the ditch facing the wrong way. Very strange.

Alright, until tomorrow, dear readers. :)