The LONG Drive Home!!!

Our drive back to North Carolina from Ohio was probably the WORST travel day we've experienced yet. We left Dad's around 6:30am because we knew the weather would be not so friendly. I drove initially so that Mike could get some extra winks in.

We did great until we hit Celina, OH... then the snow started... and kept at us for about 3 hours!! In that 3 hours we saw ONE snow-plow! This meant 40mph for over 3 hours... yucko!

Then... coming into Columbus we entered the ice part of the snowstorm. Even with the defrost on high heat, the windshield was quickly covered with solid ice and the roads were as slick as a skating rink... but we kept on going (cautiously I might add).

Mike woke up in the middle of the ice-storm and I was able to pass off driving to him on the East side of Columbus where it became sleet & freezing rain with mega-fog. Not exactly the best conditions, but much better than the mucky mess I got us through. The top picture above was taken off I-77 south near Marietta and is what we saw for the next several hours!

Finally, as we neared Charleston the freezing rain stopped.... but it wasn't long before it was dark and then it started to just downpour on us with horrible winds!!! The bottom picture doesn't even come close to capturing what it was like...

We finally arrived back in Winston around 7:30pm last night!! That's right... our normal 10 hour trip took us over 13 hours!!! Through it all the kid were sooooo good! They all knew not to fight or complain about anything in weather like that!

We were able to have some fun on the trip. Paige sleeping gave us the biggest cackle... she was catching flies for well over an hour!

We had a great time visiting friends & family in Ohio, but we certainly are thankful to be back home in North Carolina!