Is this trip really necessary?

Co-workers Christmas Travel adventure:

There but by the Grace of God, go I.

JK and hubby NK have two grown sons; one lives in Portland just off the 205 bypass and the other lives 40 miles from the coast near Chehalis, Washington. Even though the weather had been growing worse and worse i.e.; snow MORE snow, they decided to chance it because all that traffic would beat off the snow…maybe…

So they took off Tuesday afternoon, packed up the car with the dog in the crate and off they went. It was fairly clear sailing until they got to I5 near Roseburg and the snow was much worse than they had thought it might be. The weather conditions quickly reduced the travel speed to 30 mph. They got near Wilsonville and decided to slither off the freeway and ended up in a Shell station parking lot with lots of other cars in similar predicament. In the meantime it continued to snow until they had no visible guideposts by which to navigate. The Shell station had a bathroom and hot coffee. They dug out blankets and attempted to sleep but being pretty wired, sleep was fairly impossible. The radio advised chains. 205 was closed. Yipes! They did not have chains, so began calling around. Les Schwab had chains at a store about 4 miles back. So they got going early and floundered back to Les Schwab and stood in line for 2 hours waiting to purchase and have chains installed on their car. Great! Now they can head to Portland to son’s apartment. They called son to let them know they were on the way. Son told him his parking lot was snowed in, he might be able to hike out to the 205 on ramp and meet them there. No no, we have chains we will bust through and they did. Got loaded up with Portland son and headed up to Washington. People they talked to earlier told them that Washington was pretty clear, it only turned to sh*t when they crossed into Oregon. Okey dokey! They managed to follow a snow plow that was clearing up 205 and they got through and there was still lots of snow, very slow going at 20 mph with the chains. They got to Chehalis, more snow. Could barely make out off ramp signs. Missed the one they needed and put on hazard lights in order to carefully back up to the correct off ramp. Statie with lights and LOUDSPEAKER wanted to know WHAT THE #*$*% they thought they were doing! Demanded that they take off their chains by God he had a bolt cutter to take ‘em off if they couldn't’t wrestle them off by hand. Finally the cop let them back up and told them how to get to where they were going with chains and they needed them. By then, NK was pooped and Portland son took over driving. They literally crept the last 25 miles and Washington son had opened the middle bay of his humongous garage and they managed to gun it up the slope and slid into the garage. Phew!
They spent the next two or three days resting. JK went outside to check the snow depth in the back yard, fell in and couldn't’t get out. She was beached, two arms and a leg sunk in past daylight in the snow bank. Help! Helpity, Help HELP HELP!!! The son’s took pictures and hauled her out of the snow bank. Had to make special patch for the dog to go outside.

Trip back; managed to drive back without chains through Portland, dropped off Portland son, had lunch and took off. They got to Wilsonville and a fully loaded gasoline tanker had crashed and burned, the driver was killed, it was horrible. Took hours to get past Wilsonville. They got to all the freeway construction near Eugene, it was raining it was pitch black, couldn't’t see the highway markers at all. They turned on their Christmas Gift, a GPS and it told them, which turn, to take and got them through Roseburg and home about 10:30 pm last night. General consensus is “Lets NOT do that again!”

I commented that they were lucky they did not have to spend two days sleeping in an airport. At least the airport had bathrooms and was relatively warm was the response. Yeah……