Winter in Missouri

Monday evening the "snow" began. We had church that evening because of a set of revival services our church is hosting this week. It is so funny down "south" here. Everyone freaks out at the first indication of snow. Well, drivers freak out. Wish I could say the same for the members of the Southern Missouri Snowplow Association or whatever they call themselves. Between our town and the next, they have a total of two snowplows, and probably enough salt to "unsliperyfy" a driveway.

At 8 PM we were done with church and heading home. Unfortunately it was my turn to drive that day. Actually neither way would have been a win-win situation... my roommate Maureena is from Chattanooga, TN (that's southern Tennessee for those of you who don't know) and they have had snow maybe three times in her life time. And then there's me... the world's most petrified driver. I still hate to drive. I am actually very cautious, but am so afraid, even still. But tonight it was me behind the wheel. I knew we were in trouble when I pulled out of the church parking lot and skidded on the road right away. My little car, Ellie, has a little light that blinks and a little alarm that sounds when I start to skid. I'm not sure what the point of that is, though. I can feel myself skidding, and that sound and flashing light only adds to my panic. Anyway, apparently the snow plow people were fast asleep in their beds, because our two snowplows were parked neatly in the St.Robert Public Works parking lot. Finally we saw one pull out, only to scrape the middle turning lane, and not even to salt the roads. The roads were insanely slippery. there was a thin layer of freshly fallen snow, covering a dangerous looking layer of solid ice. Normally I go 50 mph on one road, and 65 mph on our curvy Highway 17 going home. Tonight, however, I turtled along at an agonizing 25-30 mph. No one seemed to mind, though, because the cars around me were going that slow or slower. Our average 20 min. trip home ended up taking 45 minute, but we eventually made it home safely.

Needless to say, school was cancelled the next day. I know this teacher was just as excited as her students were at the prospect of a day off! I was pretty much lazy all day- did some laundry, cleaning and organizing, and made a lot of jewelry. In the evening I went to church for the revival service and was able to talk quite extensively to the visiting evangelist and the three college graduates from West Coast who are traveling with him.

Today, all of the public schools were cancelled still, but we decided to have school. We have allotted 5 school days, and if we exceed them, we have to make them up. Seeing as it is the middle of January and we have already used to, we decided not to waste another. However, most of the students in my class did not come today. My regularly full class of 16 dwindled to 7. I must say that it was a very easy day, however, and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.