Yeah, the well laid plans of mice and men.

We managed to get ourselves stranded in town.

It was NOT snowing when we got up, so we assumed we could do our massively busy day on Saturday.  We did it.  Trucked on through all the events, were tired, but coping.

About 3/4's of the way through the last one we looked out the window and saw a few stray snow flakes.  We weren't super nervous we figured it would take quite a bit before we couldn't move...and it wasn't sticking yet.

So we wrapped up the potluck, headed out, and as we got west the snow got worse and worse.  Visibility was nill.  But it still wasn't sticking much, so we figured we would be fine.

We stopped at the Joyce church picked up my tree I won in the auction, and began to head home.  By this time there's about a 1/2 inch on the road, and its still snowing HARD.  Big fluffy blinding flakes, and its 6 pm so dark dark dark outside.

I was driving as its "my" van and I'm a bit  more comfy with how it handles.  I started having to drive slower and slower as the visability got worse, and the snow got deeper and deeper.  

Just before we hit the first "big" hill otherwise known as Sumas pass I was doing about 25-30.  Visibility was terrible, and the snow had turned into one big skating rink.

We do NOT have snow tires on the van--and the white van is an absolute pig in the snow.  PIG!  I looked at Rob, and we still figured we could handle it, I'd just take the pass at a nice steady pace.

Which was great until I started broad sliding.  There was no trafffic--we were the only idiots still on the road, and we were going up the hill sideways.  We did that for about a half a mile.  It was mostly a controlled sideways, and I knew if I stopped we were utterly screwed.  But then controlled went down hill, and I had to gently, gently put on the brakes, and we stopped about one foot from the guard rail.

The kids were very very scared, and started screaming while I was sliding sideways, but one quick and strong command they all shut up.

Once I got stopped, I had to get started.  We tried and tried to get up the hill.  But the van just absolutely couldn't do it.  And sometime during that process we burned out our power steering.

*Gah*

So we opted to go down the hill instead.  I eventually got us turned around.  Put it in first gear, put the emergency brake half way down, and Rob got in the back to give us as much weight back there as we could.  WE got down but even at two miles per hour the van was sliding all over the road.

TERRIFYING.

But the deal was we were 20 miles from the nearest house or any civilization.  And we knew we couldn't get stranded there.

Its a long, long story, but eventually we got to the church where Awana was, and after much drama we finally called my dad who met us, and we very illegally piled into his car and went and spent the night at his house.

Its been a bunch of drama trying to get home to get our other van.  But its finally on its way back to my moms...and we *might* try going home tonight.

We shall see when they report the road conditions now that its dark again.