snow driving is a white knukle event!

We went to St. Charles MO (just west of St. Louis) yesterday. Cold, but dry. Enjoy a great evening with our niece/nephews and the combined 15 great grands...

I woke at 4 this morning (hotel) looked out the window... nothing going on except for a family leaving (the smart ones)... back to bed. Chuck got up at 7, let me sleep, and when he came back, woke me... said SNOW. So I got up, dressed, quickly went and ate some oatmeal and were on the road by 9 (after Chuck cleaned off the car)...

It had started snowing after 4am... everything white. We headed out... and thought we were lucky we got behind 3 snowplows (in 3 lanes... the 4th went untouched)....

For someone who has been away from those conditions for 10 years, I was a wreck. DH drove, 40mph tops. At one point we had to leave and go around the snowplows to take our route... totoal slush out... that plow dumped a ton off crap on us (not his fault)....

For 4 hours, we drove in near white out conditions... trying to follow and hoping the car in front of us knew where the lanes were (totally not visible)...

27 degrees outside, hot inside, but my hands were wringing wet, not from heat, but from nerves.

Once we reached the IL/IN state line, the snow had basically stopped and roads were pretty dry, very little now on the grass....

I'm too old to do this anymore... as much as we enjoyed our time with the family last night, we've dedided we'd never drive anyplace or anywhere in Dec or any month when there might be snow...

Dang, it's good to be home LOL

I have only driven in snow two or three times, but I have driven on ice and it is scary. I cannot imagine! I would never let dh drive though....he scares me.

It's exhausting, isn't it? I don't mind driving slow, but it's visibility problems that scare the sh*t out of me. I can remember driving down to Grand Rapids and hitting the open lakeshore in Lake City. All of a sudden I could see nothing. Your gut instinct is to come to a complete stop - but will the guy behind you do the same, or will you get rear-ended? I finally found that if I glanced to the right I could see a slightly raised outline that showed me where the plowed snow had been piled and I crawled through, going about 5 mph. Longest mile of my life!

I also hate what I call "Star Wars Snow", where the flakes seem to be falling right towards your face...similar to the opening credits of the Star Wars films... That messes with your head! LOL My brain can't take that for very long.

Yesterday every last bit of leftover snow from last week was completely gone. We woke up to 8 inches this morning. I ventured out, I had too. I try to avoid winter driving as much as possible but that's not really feasible, lol.

I try to avoid it too... heck, we moved south... and we get it (which is nothing to complain about) it's gone in a day. I could just never live in the north again.... never, never, never! I'm become my mother in the car... a nervous wreck... and DH is really a good driver.

I'm with you, Dee. I like snow, but not on the roads. Around here, you can just wait it out. It will be gone in a day or two. It sucks when you know that if you wait, you'll only get more snow.