Wild Weather With Whipping Winds!

Well, today is Friday, and we STILL have no snow. Boohoo...

We were supposed to receive a shipment today, but instead, we decided to make a supply run. This is something that isn't *really* necessary, but has become somewhat of a "tradition". After all, we do have most of the business supplies shipped directly.

Now, the weather forecast for today was a bit "dicey" as our local weatherman describes it! We were expecting high winds with rain turning to snow late tonight.

Mark decided we should try to leave early this morning so we could head back home before too late. He really didn't want to be driving the new truck in bad weather. He hasn't driven it that much yet, and felt a bit uncomfortable about making a long trip. The trip is about 11 hours without stops...

I put together a gift basket of soaps, lotion, and whipped shea butter for out rep, a small basket of soaps for the office girls, and a little crate for the fellow who always helps me load the truck. We were out the door and on our way by 6:30.

We made three stops on our way today...one for banking, and two store stops. The day was beautiful and warm. Although it was overcast, it was still a very nice day.

By the time we arrived at our destination, we had passed through some stormy weather. As it worked out, we were able to load with no rain! Yay!

We began heading home by about 2:30. We stopped at an Arby's for late lunch, then filled the truck with gas and headed for home.

I had wanted to see the movie Polar Express, so Mark had loaded it onto the MP3 player for me. As we drove home, I became steeped in the movie, totally oblivious to anything other than the movie. It seemed funny to me that lights kept flashing, so I looked up. Good heavens! Mark's knuckles were white, and he was stiff as a 2x4....The "flashing" was a sustained lightening show! As I looked up, I could see WHY Mark was so tense....it looked as though we were driving into a sheet of rainfall. The tail lights of cars and trucks in front of us seemed to disappear into the dense wall ahead of us, almost like phantoms ships at sea....When Mark saw me look up, he made a comment about how he hoped he wasn't interrupting my movie....hahaha!!!

Thankfully, this particular portion of our journey was short lived. As we drove, the wind seemed to pick up, but at least we were no longer driving blindly!

Our new truck proved to be worth its weight in gold! Our previous truck was 2 wheel drive. When we bought this new truck, we got 4 wheel drive, and the thing weighs a great deal more because of the 4 wd. Well, we were thrilled to see that our gas mileage was about 19.5 to 20 MPG, even loaded!

As we drove nearer and nearer to home, we observed that the temps had dropped from 73 for our high to about 39. The closer we came to home, the more the wind seemed to pick up. We got home at about 8:30.

The winds are really kicking now. I imagine we will be finding more fallen trees after this round, for sure! We are supposed to be getting some snow later tonight, so perhaps I can get a snowy picture tomorrow.

It is always so much fun to travel, but getting home always feels sooooooo good!