The Stench of Discovery!: December 2009

Warning: this is a very long post! And we have no photos! You can check out Cory's post here for his take on Christmas, as well as some pictures.

We had tickets to fly to Tulsa on Christmas Eve, Thursday, at about noon. The warnings started Sunday, which was the same day I came down with a cold. Major winter storm coming Wednesday and Thursday! Ice! Sleet! Snow! If you value your lives, flee now! (Okay, maybe not that last part, but pretty close.) We kept an eye on the weather, and kept hoping maybe the forecast would change and it would get here by Tuesday, or hold off until Thursday night, but it stayed stubbornly fixed on Wednesday into Thursday. By Tuesday, they were saying we'd get a quarter-inch of ice on Wednesday, starting about noon, and then the snow would start that night. We were not feeling real hopeful for our chances of getting out of Chicago.

It kept snowing that week - just a bit every day, enough to make getting around kind of a pain. Wednesday morning, when I went to work, I checked the weather again and found the forecast for us unchanged. But the weather for Tulsa now said Major winter storm coming! Ice! Sleet! 7-12 inches of snow! If you value your lives, flee now! Luckily, one of my coworkers told me that the airlines were letting people change flights for no fee if they could get out of town ahead of the storm. I called Randy (who hadn't left for work yet), and he immediately called the reservation line while I looked up possible flights for us.

Luckily, we were able to switch our 11:35 a.m. Thursday flight to an 8:30 p.m. Wednesday flight. "Go to the airport now!" my coworkers said. "Otherwise you'll never get out of here! If you value your lives, flee now!" So I headed home, we packed super fast, and left for the airport by about 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday the 23rd. It started sleeting on our way to the airport, and it took us about an hour and forty-five minutes to get there. We got checked in and just for the heck of it, put our names on the stand-by list for the 4:30 flight. Unbeknownst to us (at that point), the 11:35 a.m. flight had been cancelled and there was no way we were going to get on the 4:30 flight.

So we sat down, and we waited, and I blew my nose every two minutes. Every flight we saw had a huge stand-by list, including ours. We waited more, and I tried to use my hand sanitizer as ostentatiously as possible, to avoid a revolt from my fellow passengers. We watched the sleet change to snow. It would have been beautiful had we not been trying to fly out - the flakes were huge, probably the biggest I've ever seen. We waited more, and I tried not to wheeze too audibly. Our gate changed probably 6 or 8 times. At one point, we were all sitting at G8 when a guy up at the agent counter turned around and yelled out, "Hey, it's H16 now!" Everyone sighed, gathered their bags, and shuffled off together. We were right behind a serviceman in uniform, who we'd seen at 3 of our previous gates, at least. "I've walked more today than I did during basic training," he said. I glanced over at a flight status monitor on our way over to H16 - and saw the gate change to H18. All we could do at that point was laugh.

Finally, at 9:30, an hour after we should have taken off, they announced that we could begin boarding and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief that we would not be spending the night at the airport. We had to wait for de-icing and finally took off a little after 10 p.m. Our flight was uneventful, except that we had to wait to deplane in Tulsa. Our captain came on the intercom to announce that due to the late hour, there was only one ground crew working and we'd have to wait our turn until they could get to us. I guess it could have been worse - after we made it into the airport at about 12:30, we heard an announcement: "Those of you waiting for the Denver flight, the new estimated arrival time is 2:30 a.m."

Joy and Cory had stayed up late to come get us (thank you!), and we made it back to Randy's parents house outside of Spavinaw at about 2 a.m. We were both starving, and after a quick sandwich, we all went to bed at about 3 a.m. It was a very long day.

It started sleeting by about 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and by about 2:30, the power was out. Because the house has an electric well pump, the lack of power also means no water. "Oh, that's a bad sign," Randy's dad said. "The power should not have gone out this early into the storm." We made the best of it, lighting candles and eating a late lunch by kerosene lamp. We decided to open our presents then, and called Randy's uncle to tell him he better head out from Tulsa ASAP if he was going to make it. (We, uh, may have also asked him to bring wine when he came. I think we all felt that we could maybe face a powerless Christmas a little bit better if we were all just a little bit, um, more relaxed, let's say.)

After about 4 hours, we were done opening presents, we had moved on to card games by candlelight, and Randy's uncle still hadn't arrived. Then the power came back on! We all cheered, and there was a literal sprint to plug in our cell phones, DS lites, and other electric devices, just in case the power went out again. At about that point, it started snowing, and wow, did it snow. After another hour or so, we heard from Randy's uncle - it had taken him nearly two hours to get to the outskirts of Tulsa, where he discovered what we had just seen on the internet - the governor of Oklahoma had declared all state highways, turnpikes and interstates closed. So he turned around and headed the nearly two hours back home.

Meanwhile, the snow kept falling. By the time it was done Christmas morning, there were about 7 inches at Randy's parents' house and in Tulsa, and Oklahoma City had gotten about 14 inches - more than it had ever gotten before!

It should be noted that Oklahoma does not get much snow. They just do not have the manpower or equipment to deal with a big snowfall like that. Joy and Cory had a flight out of the Tulsa airport at about 8 a.m. on December 26, and after some discussion, they decided that they really better head in to town the afternoon before, because they had no idea how long it would take, and so that they could make at least part of the drive before it got dark. So we quickly ate Christmas dinner and they packed up and piled into Randy's dad's truck. They took off, with Randy's dad at the wheel, moving very slowly and carefully. Nearly 3 hours later, they called to say they had made it to the hotel and that the roads were completely snow-packed.

That night, Randy, his mom and I played a game of Pandemic, which Randy got for Christmas. It's a really fun game, and we enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a little prophetic, and not in a good way. By that evening, Randy and his mom had both come down with the stomach flu and were vomiting.

The next day, Randy's dad made his slow, careful way back home. We heard from Joy that they had made it back to Phoenix before Randy's dad managed to drive back from Tulsa! Neither Randy nor his mom was really feeling any better. They both spent most of the day in bed. Meanwhile, I was checking the weather for our return on the 27th, and seeing that McHenry was supposed to be getting 6-10 inches of snow on the 26th. The only good news was that it looked like it was supposed to be done by the 27th.

The morning of the 27th, Randy (still not feeling good, but not eating anything so he would have nothing to throw up), his dad and I left for the airport. Our flight left at 2 p.m., and we decided that just to be on the safe side, we'd leave by 9 a.m. We headed (very slowly) out on to the icy, completely snow-packed roads. "Wow," Randy's dad said. "The roads are much better than they were the other day!" Luckily, by the time we made it to the turnpike (about halfway there), the roads actually were much better. Although one lane of the road was still completely covered in snow, the other lane was pretty much clear, although not totally. It took us about 2 hours, so we were plenty early for our flight, but we figured that was better than being late.

Once again, our flight was delayed, but only by about an hour. After a slightly bumpy flight back, we retrieved our car from the extended parking lot and headed home. My only concern at that point was how we were going to get our car up the driveway with all the snow. (We live in the pink area, right around the "d" in Woodstock.) Thankfully, a kind neighbor had come over with his snowblower while we were gone - there was an inch or two on the driveway still, but we didn't have to go out and shovel that night.

So! That was our Christmas. How was yours?

There are several posts we've been meaning to make over the last couple of months. We're almost to the end of the year now, so I think we should hurry up and get them posted before 2010. This is part one of our catching up: my birthday trip to Mackinac Island.

I turned 30 this year, and Randy surprised me with a trip to Mackinac Island. It's about an 8-hour drive from McHenry whichever way you go, so we decided to drive there by going south, around the bottom of Lake Michigan, and come home from the north, through Wisconsin. Our trip started off on a pretty promising note when we checked into our hotel Saturday night (still on the mainland of Michigan) and discovered that Washington had defeated USC.

Sunday (my birthday), we caught the ferry over to Mackinac Island. They don't allow motorized vehicles on the island, so the main methods of getting around (other than walking) are by horse and by bike.

We did both! We started out by taking a tour of the island by horse-drawn carriage. The town is very picturesque, and our tour guide told us about several interesting historical facts . (Bonus interesting fact: look at the link to see where Dr. Beaumont is buried!) After seeing the town, we headed into the interior of the island. Although the coastline of the island is very flat, it gets extremely hilly as soon as you turn inland. I was impressed the horses were able to pull our tour group of about 20 people up the hill with only a few short rests.

It was very pretty, and the weather was perfect. After our tour, we rented bikes and rode around the island. There's a highway that goes all the way around the edge of the island - it's about 8 miles in circumference. It was really, really pleasant to be able to ride without worrying about cars on the roads!

Our second day on the island was not quite as perfect - we still had a nice time, but it was chillier and kind of drizzling for a lot of the morning. We went up to Fort Mackinac and rode bikes again. We managed to get slightly lost on a tour of the island's interior roads, and ended up having to cut across a golf course twice in order to get unlost. I was kind of outraged to see a (non-horse drawn!) golf cart at one point.

We had a great time and I would definitely recommend the trip. I don't think I can overstate just how gorgeous everything was!

Tune in tomorrow for Catching Up, Part 2!