The Taylor Spot

We got Tori all dressed for church, and just had to take her picture!

Melissa is very excited.

With all our traveling, it has been a while since I got around to posting pictures of the house. It’s been moving along well. Brick is done, and the flooring and trimwork are underway. Painting starts next week, and cabinets go in at the end of the week.

You should see all of them, but start with this one.

There are lots of good shots from our Nebraska trip. You’ll just have to click on over to the photo gallery for November.

I wanted to share a little bit more detail about the trip back home. God was watching over us.

We left my parents’ house about 10:30 AM, later than we wanted. We knew from the weather reports that ugly roads might lie somewhere before us following the intense winter storms earlier in the week.

At York, we turned south. No snow yet. We went on into Kansas, and were past Salina before we saw any snow, just some dust along the road. As we approached Wichita, there was plenty of fallen snow drifted and piled on the shoulders, but the roads were perfect. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon as we put Wichita behind us.

In Oklahoma, the sun sank lower and the snow rose higher beside the road. An hour north of Oklahoma City, we turned east toward Tulsa. It was a toll road. I resented paying for the experience. The sun was fairly well set, and construction had closed one side of the highway. We found ourselves on what was essentially a two-lane road with 2 feet of snow on either side, and plenty of slushy stuff to drive on.

The construction ended in about 20 miles, thankfully. It was just before 7:00, and the road’s condition was worsening rapidly. We took an exit for a service plaza in the tollway median, where there was gas and a McDonald’s. (Don’t tell Truett!) The packed snow scraped our undercarriage as we made our way to a pump to top off. The attendant checked the forecast for me, and told me the temperature was 28 and would fall to 19. That worried me, because the sun had shone brightly that day and every part of the road was awash in slush and watery runoff. It wouldn’t be watery for much longer.

We walked into McDonald’s, and the manager locked the door behind us. Ours was the last order they took before shutting down the grill and sending the employees home for safety. That was not encouraging either.

The boys were of course delighted, and would have played in the deep snow as long as we let them. But Melissa and I were tense. We said a prayer, and got back on the east-bound road. Our hotel reservation was in Fort Smith, and that’s where we intended to get before stopping that night. It was over 2 hours distant in the best of conditions.

The ice came quickly. There were some bad stretches, and we couldn’t go faster than 30 or 35 miles per hour, and often slower. I began dodging abandoned cars. Most were unoccupied. As we neared Tulsa, some of the vehicles in hopeless positions on the sides of the road were still occupied and running, stuck until morning. There was nothing I could think of that I could do to help them, and I was acutely aware that I could find myself spinning into a ditch at any moment.

I thought of stopping, but the exits and surface streets looked far worse than the road I was on. I felt trapped on a wild and dangerous ride, like being on a roller coaster as it clacks up the first big slope. Good image, because about then came the big downhill run.

We could see the Tulsa skyline as we crested a ridge going about 30 miles per hour. Only one of the two eastbound lanes was usable at the moment. Ahead of us, I could suddenly see a steep slope, packed solid with brake lights. Just 100 yards ahead, and more than 10 yards below my line of sight, was the back of the line. It was not moving much at all, certainly not 30 miles per hour.

I began praying and pumping the brakes, gently. Occasionally I felt the van shudder, but the speedometer seemed to be indifferent. The gap was closing way too fast. Pray and pump, pray and pump. Finally, the needle began sliding down. The line of vehicles ahead was in fact inching forward at about 5 miles per hour, and I finally matched their speed with less than 20 feet between my van and the pickup in front of me. But I was not satisfied with that. No, I didn’t exhale until we came to a complete, blissful stop. And no one could mistake me for a tailgater when I eventually began rolling (or skating) down that hill again.

We reached the bottom without any trouble. Would there be a hill like this on the eastern side of Tulsa? Traffic on the other side was stopped; 18-wheelers couldn’t begin to haul their mass up that slope of black ice in 20-degree weather. Maybe we’d be stranded!

Roads through Tulsa were better maintained than the toll road we took into town. The situation brightened for me. Then we left Tulsa headed southeast on another toll road. In contrast to the first toll road, I got much more than my money’s worth. Somehow, it was clear and dry. I suppose the worst of the snow missed it, but I’ll thank God for that. Suddenly I was driving the speed limit, less than 45 minutes after my 4000-pound bobsled run. The hill on the west side of Tulsa did not have an evil twin on the southeast corner.

We hit 5 or 6 dense fog banks lasting 3 or 4 miles each, and then broke through into paradise, as it seemed to me. Snow on the shoulders was but a dusting. The blacktop was clean, the air was clear, and traffic was sparse. The temperature was back up to around 30 degrees. Maybe the fog was a frontal boundary. I’m not sure of that, but I’m sure God was with us. His providence is the reason we got safely into our beds outside of Fort Smith around 11:30 that night, and home safely at the end of the next day.

We got home Saturday night at 9:30 without incident. Thank God for good traveling weather both days, and good roads the second day.

Just a quick note to let everyone know we had a great trip in Nebraska, and are leaving for home tomorrow. That’s a day late, because of the big winter storm that came through. We saw no snow at all here in central Nebraska, but have heard of 5-foot drifts and lots of ice along the road homeward. Tomorrow promises to be sunny, and we have chosen the southerly route back to Atlanta. I pray we’ll be home Saturday night without incident. We have lots of pictures and a few stories to share then, but I need to get to bed now.