walking down the road in my slip on shoes

Today, I left for work and it was a beautiful morning. It was the first morning in a long time that there was no frost or snow to scrape off of my car in the morning. I remember doing a devotional about being thankful with my students this morning, and I'm pretty sure that I mentioned not scraping snow off of my car as one of the things that I was thankful for that day. Well, I should have been remembering that talk about an hour ago.

It was raining lightly in Abbotsford when I got off of work this afternoon. Have I mentioned before that Abbotsford is about an hour from where I live? Well, since it was only raining, I figured it was fine to go to coffee with a few of my friends from work. At about 4:15, I decided it was time to go. My friend Mary said, "At least it's not snowing for your commute home Stacy!" I laughed and nodded. About 3o minutes later I wasn't laughing anymore.

I was driving along Highway 1, and the snow was starting to come down. I turned on News 1130, my friendly traffic station, and heard that the snow was closing down roads, stopping bus routes, and canceling university classes in my town. I also heard that there were THREE accidents on the road that I live on, and it was described as a "sheet of pure ice." Hmm...fun!

I am a South Dakota girl, though, and figured I could handle it. Well, I'm sure I would have been able to handle the snow, but I couldn't handle being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour when I had to use the washroom and I was less than five minutes from home!

I turned onto my road at 5:10. Normally, once I turn onto that road I am home within five minutes or less. At 5:15, I was just barely up the hill. At 5:30, I called Kevin telling him that traffic was horrible. He was still at work. At 5:44, I called Kevin to tell him I had barely moved. By 6 p.m., I was calling Kevin, practically in tears because I had to use the bathroom, my car was slipping off the edge of the road every time I tried to move, I was bumper to bumper with a line of other cars, and I couldn't see anyway out. I was stuck.

Finally, around 6:10 I made it to our church. It normally takes us exactly one minute to drive to our church from our house, but I saw the police cars drive up and yep, you guessed it, they blocked off the road! I knew I was in trouble. I parked my car in the church parking lot and decided to go the rest of the way on foot.

Now, my dad has always drilled into us to always be prepared. Every winter we had to pack our trunk with a bag containing an extra coat, mittens, toque, and boots. We had to keep them in our car all winter long, just in case. All of those years of being prepared, and I never needed them. A father's advice never leaves you though, so I had the coat, the toque-thanks Scott, the mittens, and a scarf in my trunk. I didn't, however, have any boots. I don't even own any anymore! All I had were my little, black slip on shoes. The ones I had worn to work that morning...when it was a nice day. The flimsy, leather, black, slip on shoes.

So, there I was, making my way through drifts in my little, black slip on shoes. I wasn't alone though. No, certainly not! There were many others walking with me. At some points we were walking in the road, and why not? There was no traffic!

I opened my door at 6:25, threw off my coat and ran to the bathroom. I then ripped off my frozen, wet socks and changed into warm dry ones and sat my feet down by the fire.

Now that it's over an hour later, I can almost laugh at it...almost. Kevin is finally home, it's warm, the plows have been by, and the snow has stopped. The freak storm is over, and we already went and picked up my car. Amazing how nice it is to make that 1 minute drive home in just a minute! I know one thing...I think I'm going to have to invest in some boots!