After spending all of last week in Baltimore, Susan discovered that she was to return to Oklahoma at the same time a winter storm was set to arrive. About a dozen FAA Oklahoma attendees at the conference requested permission to skip the final four hours of the conference on Friday and fly home Thursday night. Permission denied. As a result, the lot of them have spent the past few days stranded, holed up in airports and hotels across the country. Susan was one of the lucky ones; she got stranded in Kansas City, MO (350 miles north of here). After spending several hours Friday waiting around at the airport, Friday night she rented a hotel room and a four-wheel drive Chrysler Aspen (an upscale version of the Dodge Durango), and drove home Saturday. Like I said, Susan was lucky. The second wave of sleet hit Saturday afternoon; there’s no way she would have made it in after that, at least not in any reasonable amount of time. Our friends Emily and Clint are still stuck in Chicago. They spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in hotel rooms due to cancelled flights. They’re being promised flights home tomorrow, but who knows for sure. Some of the others are still suck in Baltimore, and at least one was still in Dallas the last time we heard.

All the local newscasters told people here to brace themselves by stocking up with at least three days worth of food. Which of course means we did nothing. While the rest of the city was a virtual ghost town, Susan and I packed the kids up in the minivan and headed down to Boot Hill, “the biggest hill in Yukon.”

Bundled up, ready for the snow.

Mason and Daddy sliding at top speed, being chased by a dog.

Tonight as the rest of the town ate soup from cans, we headed out in search of an open restaurant. We found one — Johnny Carino’s — and had a pretty good Italian dinner while the rest of the town cowered in fear of the white stuff. Not us, sister.