Weather - always a thought in the winter. The drive from home up through the Hill Country of central Texas was the usual, but then we ran into rain - heavy rain - as we approached Lubbock from the south. Though I liked the price of gas at $2.79, I didn't like the blustery wind blowing cold rain on my back side while I was refueling. We had a chance to fire up the smartphone and see it was just rain all the way to Amarillo, so Cindy made motel reservations while I drove - and Ai Nhan and Kien stayed bored in the back seat.
And Amarillo delivered. Ai Nhan and Kien saw their first snow, even though it wasn't much at first. Packing up the car, a few flurries settled on Kien.
With a bit of apprehension, we went back on the road - the weather web sites showed we wouldn't have far to go before we outran the snow. Actually, I can handle snow - it's ice that kinda feaks me. As we went northward through the panhandle, the snow got heavy and then even heavier. As we appraoched Dalhart, I discovered ice under the snow. Hmmm - time to reasses the situation, so we pulled into a Mickey D's in Dalhart to grab a burger and use the wi-fi. Besides the radar, a fellow traveler told us she had just come through the area we were going to travel. Seems that if we could put up with another thirty minutes of snowy driving, we would find clear weather in Clayton, NM. We were glad to leave the snow behind.
Ah, New Mexico, we miss you. As we prattled on about the glories of the Land of Enchantment, it did not disappoint as we pointed out herds of pronghorn, explained a mesa and saw the looming Rocky mountains in the distance.
When Ai Nhan asked me if we would see bad weather again, I said no, but we ran into snow again at Colorado Springs and had it all the way in to Russell and Patty's.
Life is good!