Life has a way of getting in the way

Yes, I know, it has been two or three weeks since I've posted. But alas, as the title says, life does have a way of getting in the way.

Our monthly travel group moved its meeting to a new location, while it is farther from our house distance wise, it takes about the same amount of time due to being able to take the highway all the way.  Moving the location make sense, it is easier to get to and because of that fact, more people decided to join in.  Many more tales and stories and tips to listen to and absorb, that is a plus.  The downside is, it is still at the same nameless, overpriced franchise, just a different location.

As far as life getting in the way, well, we had been enjoying a fairly mild winter until this ...

... ten inches of snow.  As Mother Nature graced us with a gauzy blanket of white, life still beckoned.  My lovely wife works for the public school system which closed for the day, she, in turn, had the day off.  Not so, for me. 

When I woke the morning of the snow, there was no snow on the ground.  Not even a flake floating freely on the wisps of air in the darkened morning sky.  By the time I arrived at work, which is almost a 30 minute drive, the first crystals of snow had begun to fall.  Three hours later, it was announced we were snowed in.  The highways closed, the road directly in front of our facility became jammed with cars manned by the folks desperate to get home.

Around two in the afternoon, we were told the highways reopened and we could leave for the day.  My drive home was an obstacle course of cars, trucks and snowdrifts.  Cars and trucks lined the highways where drivers had lost control and slid into deep snow.  Several cars became stuck in the middle of the highway and were abandoned where they stopped.  My normal 30 minute drive became 90 minutes but, finally, I made it home to find a warm fire burning in the fireplace.  I didn't get a chance to enjoy it until two hours later as I had to shovel enough snow out of my drive to park off the road.

While this was enough to slow down my plans for writing and updating this blog, Mother Nature wasn't finished.  Two days later, a much slower moving snow storm moved in.  By the time this storm left it had deposited over 12 inches of snow, making a total of almost 24 inches of snow is less than four days.

And that my friends, is how life got in the way.