when the weather outside is frightful...

- We made it to Michigan yesterday...barely. We left around noon and picked up Alaina in Philly. The weather was fine across Pennsylvania and into the beginning parts of Ohio and we were making great time. Then came the first accident. We sat for an hour on the highway about 90 miles east of Toledo while a large accident got cleared up. Luckily we were: a) about a quarter mile behind the accident so we weren't involved and b) about a quarter mile behind the accident because the Ohio Turnpike had to be backed up at least 20 miles. After they clear up the accident we got moving and the roads were treacherous. Sticky slush tried to pull the Subaru all over the road but the Subby refused to be man-handled in such a way. It rained through out the rest of Ohio and hovered near the freezing mark making any driving above 60 mph foolish. As we entered Michigan the roads cleared a bit, which almost had me thinking I was on the well plowed roads of the New York State Thruway. I soon found out how wrong I was. It was only a matter of time before the road became barely "plowed" if you even want to call it that. It was not uncommon to find myself driving back and forth between the lanes merely because that's what the plow had decided to plow. Numerous SUVs were off the road, only further confirming my beliefs that many SUV drivers think they are invincible and are in fact, not even close. Our speed was around 50mph for this section and once in a while on a good stretch I could push it to the blistering pace of 55mph (for anyone who knows how I like to drive, 55mph felt like walking but I was smart and held back from speeding). Interstate-96 brought slightly better paved roads and we passed a few plows (I will save my diatribe against the poor design of Michigan plows for another blog post). We passed plenty of accidents and plenty of people flying along the highway at a good 30mph (they obviously hadn't been driving from New Jersey all day). The worst accident we passed, which we likely barely missed, was a tractor trailer completely spun around and 2 cars off the road near it. The vehicles didn't look too damaged but we called 911 to alert them and police were already on the way. I only hit one spot of slush that tried to make the back end come around but with a little correction the Subaru again refused to be driven off the road bringing to mind the civil rights era song lyrics, "We shall not, We shall not be moved." The precipitation at this point was minimal and our greatest danger were the bad road conditions and even worse drivers including the mini-van who was tailgating me for a quarter-mile. We got off 96 onto 28th St safely, though the exit ramp was a mess and pulled onto Jefferson SE at approximately 3:58 am Subaru time, 3:53 EST. We quickly unpacked the car and hit the pillows, relieved to be done driving.

So we're here. And we're excited.