Sliding Home for the Holidays

My daughter over at The Shades of Pink posted about her ride home last night. In North east Oklahoma they have ice and lots of it. Last night was especially bad.
So as I said, she had a sliding experience. It brought back memories of our slide in 1967.

We had been living in California for 1 1/2years with no visits back to Arkansas. I missed my family and I had a new baby my Mom had not seen.
We decided to go. Heck in those days, we never even gave the quality of the car or the tires a second thought, I guess you can include weather in that too. (since we did not check the weather reports).
We had the car fixed the day we left, I think it was a fuel pump.
We had planned on an early start but David had to get that fixed. (last minute)
Now we are slowed down, we were invited to a friends house for dinner, she made chicken fried steak, She had gifts for the boys. (Daisy and Joe Whiteside) They wanted to tell us good by.
I called and explained it was going to be really late, she did not care. "Just come on over when you get ready, Joe and I will be here whenever"
OK we arrive there after dark, Maybe about 5 or 6 PM.
Next we head to Red Bluff to pick up Davids Mom, she is traveling with us, to see her sisters.
As we arrive she has a Grandchild with her, She thinks he should be allowed to go.
NO WAY! David said emphatically NO!!
Another set back, We take "Little Allen" to another brothers house and finally we are on the road. We are exhausted after this long day.
All these set backs should have been a warning.
We drive all night and end up at Tehachapie early morning. As we step out of the car I hit a bunch of ice and slip, I am holding my baby so I protect him. David helps his Mom so she will not fall. Charles is enthralled by the beauty of the ice world we are in.
OK we are on a mountain top, as soon as we get off the mountain, the weather will clear.
Think So?
After breakfast we begin our descent down the mountain, The weather does clear but our car is having problems.
David goes to a shop and they will fix it. OK we rent a room and warm up and wait for the car. About three in the morning David comes in and says, Honey the weather is getting colder and a front is coming in, we should beat it out of here.
We load up and drive, Snow begins to fall, Snow begins to fall Hard and Fast and Big.
We are in a White Station wagon, Snow is white.
As we drive slowly down the road, trying desperately to find a motel, We are running out of towns, We stop at every dive on the road and nothing is open. No one is facing this weather.No one but us crazies and a few truck drivers.
As we begin our travel down Route 66, we try to stay in ruts carved by trucks and other cars. We have chains on, Chains that have broken and are hitting the underside of the car. (I think we put those on in Flagstaff Arizona.)
David is driving really slow and careful, He has four extra lives in his care.
Oh did I mention David had his arm in a sling. He had broken it in March and it had not healed properly, so he had to have an operation to repair the bone.
So he is driving one handed.
Suddenly a big truck moves us off the road. I think he did not see us, We were white remember.
As David moves to avoid being hit, he loses control, We turn around and around between the two highways. David says , "Hold on to the babies", Mom is holding on to Charles, I have Ken in my arms. Child seats were not heard of then. Well good ones, ours hooked over the front seat.
We cry out "God help us"

After several 360's, The car suddenly straightened up, headed in the direction we were headed. Perfect pull out of the slide. It felt surreal, like we just had a bad dream and woke up in perfect peace.
We make it to the next town, Joseph City Arizona. We see a motel open. We stop, they have a room and we stay. We stay and stay, We stay for 5 days, snowbound in Joseph City Arizona. A place that is literally no place. However the people were kind and we had hot food and they helped us with the bottles and even made food for us free of charge. They allowed me use of their laundry to keep the diapers washed, David spent a lot of time in the car, listening to the weather and road reports.
David Charles and I spent a few afternoons, walking around town, or community. We saw Big Tex a snowman that was at least 12 feet tall. We saw all the holiday decorations, We listened to the juke box at the restaurant. The hit song of the time, was, "I Hear Little Rock Calling"
Truly that was the song we heard every day, We would laugh and say, "Man if we could only get to Little Rock we would be 30 miles from home. "
Finally the road opened to the east. We were in the car and out of there as quickly as we could possible go.
Finally we arrive on dry roads and we are so tried, but we did not dare stop again. We would not stop until we are in my Moms driveway. Well except to buy gas and food and coffee.
So Yes I know how horrifying a skid can be.
We never get in our car to make trip that we do not pray Gods hand on us as we travel.
We have been through the worse of it and we made the best of a Very bad situation. God was in control.
We did not go home the same route we went out, We went across 900 miles of Texas, rather than the panhandle. Then over 900 miles of California. We had about 100 or so of each of the other two states. But we had no snow or ice.