We have had a Nascar trip planned for awhile, and this was the week for us to take off. I had to work on Monday and Tuesday and we were to take off on Wedsnesday. M was very nervous about the weather and checked the forecasts daily saying that maybe we should leave after work on Tuesday. I was the optimist, sure that everything would work out. Right after I got home from work on Tuesday the wind came up. There was snow in the forecast, too, so that was a bit worrisome. M had darts that night and got home about 10:30 saying, "if we're going, we have to go now or we won't get out of here." Luckily, we were pretty much packed and ready. R was also at darts and on his way home. He was coming to pick up our dog and trade pickups. He put his in our garage and took the bale pickup and the dog and headed to his house, and we headed toward Richland. We didn't get very far when the cell phone rang. R was stuck. He had also lost the fan belt (again) and the pickup was heating. We turned around and headed to R. I can't explain how bad the visibility was. The snow was swirling so much. We got almost to R but were afraid to go too far in case we would get stuck, too. R and Pete came running through the snow and climbed in with us. We took them back to our house where R would stay for the night and then ride his snowmobile to his house in the morning.
I was doubtful that we could make it to Richland and didn't want to go, but M was determined so off we went again. It was slow going, but I could see out the side window and let him know if I thought he needed to go left or right to stay on the road. At least where there were big banks of snow on each side we knew where the edges of the road were. We had just gone by the turn to our neighbor's house where there is a slight curve in the road and I was saying, "go right, go right" but he didn't react fast enough and we dived in the ditch. What a sick feeling. I thought M was going to cry.
I called the neighbor's house and told them we had driven into the ditch and politely asked if they'd like to come pull us out. Our neighbor came and after several tries was able to pull us out. His wife had just gotten home from work in Scobey and said that the weather wasn't bad when she left work. It was so awful where we were that I said if we made it to Richland we weren't going any further. We got to the highway and headed into Richland and the situation seemed much better so we transferred our stuff from the pickup to our car and headed toward Scobey.
The situation wasn't as good as it seemed earlier and we basically followed the yellow line on the highway. That worked well until the lines disappeared under snow. At one point we would have been in the ditch again but happened to veer off where there was an approach. We had to buck a few snowdrifts along the way. Things did improve farther down the road with less wind, but it was still snowing heavily. M didn't feel comfortable taking the road from Scobey to Wolf Point since it has been bad all winter so we dropped in on his parents at 1:30 am , two hours after we had left home, and spent the night there. I told M my mouth had never been so dry and it must have been from the fear. I was gripping the door handle so tight that I developed a terrible cramp in my arm.
Luckily, the snow didn't continue much longer. We headed south at about 8:00 am and although there was still some ground drifting the road was basically bare and dry. So, we continued on and stopped for the night 14 hours and 900+ miles later. But, after driving through Cheyenne, Denver, Albuquerque and Mesa I've decided I would rather drive through a blizzard than drive in traffic!
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