Wednesday, January 05, 2005
At Home
My wife is sick. For her to be sick enough to stay home, she has to be really sick. On Monday we were able to get some rest during the day and make that a better day, but then we went on with the week as if we were healthy (I too have a cough). That involved staying out late Monday night, and maintaining our busy schedule Tuesday (my wofe at least got to bed by 10 or 10:30). Her temperature is quite low and so she is covered in blankets with the electric blanket on and trying to sleep. Meanwhile I will try to give her apple juice, take her temperature, and at lunch time give her chicken broth (or something).
I noticed yesterday that I had not yet posted about the trip home from Dauphin. I have told the story to some people, but since it is not written, I have not officially recorded it. On Thursday December 30th we left Dauphin, knowing that at some point a big snow storm would be coming and if we waited another day we would be stuck for two days. What we didn't know was that the storm had already started on the road ahead of us. about 30-40 minutes outside of Dauphin we started encountering highway conditions that made me a little edgier as I drove.The snow blowing across the road was no problem, but where there was a bunch of trees there would be snow drifts on the road and that was a problem. They would shift us around on the road, there was ice under them, I did not feel safe driving through those drifts, but I had or we would get caught in a storm. We got to Portage la Prairie and the snow was flying pretty good by that piont, but the main highway was not closed down. After a brief lunch we set out again (my wife drove this part). When we reached the bypass at Winnipeg, we found it unpassable - unless you wanted to crawl along behind the snowplows. We took the first exit off the bypass and tried to find our way back to the main road through Winnipeg. This was a challenge because we did not know where we were and the windshield kept melting and freezing the falling snow so that we had to stop and scrape. We stopped for directions (I cleaned the windshield) and started out again, but we missed something somewhere and had to stop at another place for directions. At this point I started driving so that my wife could read the signs and direct me (this system works well for us). We soon were back on the main road and heading through Winnipeg quickly. This did not take much time once we got back onto the main road.
On the other side of Winnipeg we grabbed a coffee to go and I continued driving. On this divided highway where there is 2 lanes going each way, the cars were driving in single file down an unscraped road. We could drive in the one lane, but not the other. As we go further and further out of town we lost our travelling companions until we found ourselves as the leaders of the pack (not much behind us though).Being in front I could set my own pace and I was getting comfortable with the road conditions, I was able to go a little faster than the car we were following. Once in a while we would catch up to someone and follow them until they too left the main road. The strangest thing happened when the divided highway ended. The roads were plowed and looked after. The snow was still coming down, but roads were better for driving. We went on past Kenora, although at the far side of the town, the last turn off to get into Kenora traffic going west was stopped, and there was a truck in the eastbound lane stopped with his hood up. A car was behind them. This looked like car trouble and enough people around to assist so we went on. A couple hours later we arrived a Dryden. We refueled and wanted to hit the road as quickly as possible. But the roads were now closed. We were stopped in Dryden (where the roads looked better than what we had been through). At the sign was a policeman, so I drove up to ask about the roads ahead and he just replied that they are closed. No explaination about the condition or anything, and I never argue with a man with attitude and a gun. We got a hotel room and stayed the night, hoping that we would not get stuck in the huge snow storm that had been chasing us. It turned out that everything was good to go the next day, and we had an uneventful drive back home. A couple days later we were shovelling snow again.
I noticed yesterday that I had not yet posted about the trip home from Dauphin. I have told the story to some people, but since it is not written, I have not officially recorded it. On Thursday December 30th we left Dauphin, knowing that at some point a big snow storm would be coming and if we waited another day we would be stuck for two days. What we didn't know was that the storm had already started on the road ahead of us. about 30-40 minutes outside of Dauphin we started encountering highway conditions that made me a little edgier as I drove.The snow blowing across the road was no problem, but where there was a bunch of trees there would be snow drifts on the road and that was a problem. They would shift us around on the road, there was ice under them, I did not feel safe driving through those drifts, but I had or we would get caught in a storm. We got to Portage la Prairie and the snow was flying pretty good by that piont, but the main highway was not closed down. After a brief lunch we set out again (my wife drove this part). When we reached the bypass at Winnipeg, we found it unpassable - unless you wanted to crawl along behind the snowplows. We took the first exit off the bypass and tried to find our way back to the main road through Winnipeg. This was a challenge because we did not know where we were and the windshield kept melting and freezing the falling snow so that we had to stop and scrape. We stopped for directions (I cleaned the windshield) and started out again, but we missed something somewhere and had to stop at another place for directions. At this point I started driving so that my wife could read the signs and direct me (this system works well for us). We soon were back on the main road and heading through Winnipeg quickly. This did not take much time once we got back onto the main road.
On the other side of Winnipeg we grabbed a coffee to go and I continued driving. On this divided highway where there is 2 lanes going each way, the cars were driving in single file down an unscraped road. We could drive in the one lane, but not the other. As we go further and further out of town we lost our travelling companions until we found ourselves as the leaders of the pack (not much behind us though).Being in front I could set my own pace and I was getting comfortable with the road conditions, I was able to go a little faster than the car we were following. Once in a while we would catch up to someone and follow them until they too left the main road. The strangest thing happened when the divided highway ended. The roads were plowed and looked after. The snow was still coming down, but roads were better for driving. We went on past Kenora, although at the far side of the town, the last turn off to get into Kenora traffic going west was stopped, and there was a truck in the eastbound lane stopped with his hood up. A car was behind them. This looked like car trouble and enough people around to assist so we went on. A couple hours later we arrived a Dryden. We refueled and wanted to hit the road as quickly as possible. But the roads were now closed. We were stopped in Dryden (where the roads looked better than what we had been through). At the sign was a policeman, so I drove up to ask about the roads ahead and he just replied that they are closed. No explaination about the condition or anything, and I never argue with a man with attitude and a gun. We got a hotel room and stayed the night, hoping that we would not get stuck in the huge snow storm that had been chasing us. It turned out that everything was good to go the next day, and we had an uneventful drive back home. A couple days later we were shovelling snow again.
// posted by Eric @ 10:38 AM 
