Road, Road, and more Road

We started our drive to Maryville TN later than we planned. We got up at 6 AM MST, hoping to leave by 7, but were not able to leave until 8. Getting those last loose ends tied up before leaving always takes longer than expected. Snow was forecasted for Erie this morning and we would have missed it if we had left on time. However, as we left snow was gently drifting down, but fortunately not accumulating. As we headed East, we slowly left the snow behind and headed toward blue skies.

As we entered Kansas though, the sky turned dark again and it started snowing. We had to slow down to around 55 mph and kept seeing vehicles that had slid off the roads. As long as we drove in the right lane we could keep our tires on dry pavement with accumulated snow passing beneath the car. If we wanted to pass someone though, the passing lane had more snow and we presumed those off the road were individuals trying to pass and hit slick spots. We stopped for gas, finding the roads off the interstate to have about 6 inches of snow. I talked to a trucker about the weather and he said he heard on the CB radio that the weather was worse the further west you traveled, all the way to St. Louis. We were pretty bummed to hear that news, but did not have much choice but to keep driving. Thankfully, the weather did not get much worse and we drove out of it around Kansas City. It was dark, probably between 9-10 PM as we left Kansas City so we were glad that we would not be traveling in snow at night time.

We had planned on stopping for the night, but I was able to just keep on driving. I even felt good and awake at 2 AM, so we decided just to go through the night. My "good and awake" feelings did not last long though I had a little difficulty between 2:30 and 3:30, but we made it.

We arrived in Maryville on Sunday at 11 AM, Eastern time. As we were turning onto Ed and Lana's street we met Ed as he was driving home from church. Perfect timing. Total time to get to there house was 25 hours that included a stop that was over an hour at Shoneys for breakfast.