Oh, h#$% no and Updates

This was the view when I woke up.

Again, with the snow.
I feel much better about it now; now that the temp is up slightly and huge mush-balls of snow are falling off cars and out of trees. But still, just stop it Sky!

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Here is the beginning of The Story of Christmas 2008:

Our Christmas vacation was planned for some time. We would leave town the Sunday before Christmas and drive to central CA to relatives. We planned on doing it in one day but if necessary, because of Oliver, we were giving ourselves the option of stopping for the night. Then we would return the following Saturday.

That did not happen.

Instead, we got more snow in Walla Walla, than Walla Walla has seen in 'nigh these many years'. Old timers from our block were talking about it being the most snow in 25, maybe 30 years. Good grief. So we decided to get a jump start and get on the road on Saturday giving ourselves an extra day. However at midnight, we starting talking about flying out of Portland. The weather was getting worse here and there and we were starting to wonder if Oliver would just make the whole thing hideous. So we booked a 5 pm flight.

We got out of town by 9 am, had to use chains through town until we hit Hwy 12. Then we took them off and thought, hey, if the road is this clear we'll totally make it! Not.

We hit snow again about Hood River and had to put the chains back on. We lost one of them somewhere, but even though we could only go 25 mph we couldn't stop to look for it.

From Hood River to Troutdale was awful. I'm so glad Ethan was okay with driving for so long because it was all I could do to remain a calm passenger and keep Oliver happy with snacks and toys.

We got flight update messages around noon that our flight had been canceled. So we decided to head to my aunt's house in Troutdale and wait it out a bit, call the airlines etcetera.

We finally arrived there at 3 pm. It took us 6 hours for what was normally a 4 hour trip. They had company for Sabbath dinner and when they headed home it took them almost 45 minutes. They live only 5-10 minutes away.

Then we heard they closed the Gorge behind us. Eek. Well, now we're really stuck. The snow was
blowing bad but no new snow seemed to be coming down.

Since our flight was canceled, Ethan called to see what the next available flight was. Monday. At 9 pm. Yeah, at NIGHT. Gar. So we check some other airlines and reserve (but not purchase) another flight for Sunday. We decide to stay the night and see what happens.

We watch the flights all day Sunday and they keep getting canceled until our flight is canceled too. So we think we'll stay another night and maybe our Monday flight will actually get out.

We watch our flight Monday, seeing all the ones scheduled earlier in the day get canceled hour by hour. Then ours goes too. At about 5 pm we decide that now is the time to jump in the car and get moving. The Gorge had been reopened but we still wanted to try and get to CA for Christmas. The weather was letting up but another storm was supposed to hit Tuesday. We hit the road with borrowed chains from Uncle Terry.

-----To Be Continued-----