An empty stretch of I-35 in northwestern Missouri
I'm sitting at my computer in a hotel in Bethany, Missouri, looking out at the scene above. Bing Crosby is singing me Christmas music (I put my CD in the computer) and I've got a workout planned in the little gym and some work planned for today: organizing paperwork and hopefully finishing at least the continuing medical education which is due by the end of the year. Why, you ask, would I be hanging out in a hotel room today? The answer: Iowa. Okay, a little bit of Missouri is to blame, too.
I drove quite a bit more than half of my Texas to Minnesota drive yesterday since the promised snow never arrived in Oklahoma or Kansas. The drive was nice, despite the weird driving conditions: nearly 700 miles of strange gray foggy weather. It didn't break until I was halfway through Kansas, and it was not only eerie weather, but it was also odd to have it last for so long. I listened to some Christmas CDs by my Dad's choir, the West Shore Chorale, a worship CD compilation that my friend Erin made for me, and I also found some interesting radio stations. When the snow started swirling and the road had a layer of ice from the storm earlier in the week I decided it was time to pull over. One hotel was full, and so I'm at the Best Western which has wireless internet. I found some excellent websites last night from various states' Departments of Transportation. However, although last night it looked like I would probably be okay today, the snow is coming at the maximum amount predicted. This morning IDOT states that the first 133 miles of I-35 are"completely covered with ice, roadway is completely covered with snow, towing services prohibited"!
So, thinking it unwise to drive where I could not be towed out (!), I called the front desk to book another night of the hotel, then went to the nearby Wal*Mart to get some fruit and water (no offense to northwestern Missouri, but even I couldn't drink the hotel tap water). See the Wake-Up Wal-Mart website for some of the reasons I haven't been inside a Wal*Mart for a decade. (When I got my tire repaired in Yuma I didn't actually have to go inside the store, so I'm not counting that one!)
Hopefully tomorrow all will be well. I'm sure the ice will still be present since it's only 18 degrees here now, but Des Moines is only 1 1/2 hours away in good weather, then it's another 4 hours to St. Paul. So, it looks like I will make it there in time for tomorrow evening's gathering of my former residency colleagues that my friend Cassie put together. However, even if I leave well before dawn, the icy conditions mean that I will still miss church tomorrow morning at my old stomping ground, Messiah Episcopal Church.
