No Ashes For US!

Yesterday the weather was pretty yucky. The Mass options were 9 A.M. and 4:45 P.M. In the morning it was sleeting and my husband called to say it had taken him 40 minutes to get to work (ordinarily takes 15). So dd and I decided we'd wait for afternoon when it was predicted to just be snowing. DS, on the other hand decided to go to the 9. He got back and said it had taken him only 20 minutes to get to church (ordinarily 15) and that we should have gone then because the weather was getting worse. At noon the lit girls came, roads were fine. So at 4:15 we headed out (needed to stop at the post office to mail a bill and were trying to take our time). The roads seemed pretty good in town. Then, outside of town, we headed up a big hill. The cars coming from the other direction were all going really, really slowly and had their hazard lights on. It was pretty clear there was an accident up ahead and that the roads were getting slippery. So we decided to turn around and go back home. Far easier said than done. The turning around went fine, but when we headed back down the hill the car simply wouldn't go straight. I managed to keep it out of the ditch, but when it simply refused to go straight down the hill I turned it up hill (where I actually had some traction and then pulled off into the nearest road. We watched accidents happen and other people slip and slide. After one accident we actually pulled further down the road we were on so that we didn't get hit. We watched people coming up hill fast not realizing what was going on. Finally the salt truck came by and the police as well. We sat for a long, long time trying to decide whether to venture down the hill again. My husband arrived and said that the road was ok for us to try it. So very slowly we did. We were so glad to get home where it was warm. However, we were sorry to miss our ashes. We were gone from the house for two hours and we traveled probably only about 3 and a half miles each way. We actually contemplated leaving the car and walking home, but that wasn't an attractive option either.

Note to self: do not go out in the winter again with only a quarter of a tank of gas. For if you are stranded you will hesitate to run the engine for long and you will get very, very cold. Also, the blankets probably should go back in the trunk of the car. It's a good place to store them for a beach trip next summer, and they would come in handy in a storm.