Monday, December 22, 2008

One Long Drive

I posted while we were on the road that the weather was pretty bad but I thought I would expand on that post.

When we woke up Saturday morning the weather in Pullman was foggy but otherwise good so we decided to go ahead and continue with our plans to go for Portland that day. As we left Pullman the weather got better. The roads were good and it was sunny and beautiful. The weather stayed pretty good until we got to Arlington, Oregon. At this point it started to snow a little but the roads were still pretty good. By the time we got to The Dalles, Oregon it was snowing, windy and the roads were terrible. The wind was blowing from all directions and because it was coming in off the Columbia River the wind was very cold. Any moisture on the windshield froze instantly because of how cold the wind was. We had our defrost on full blast and the windshield wipers still weren't really doing enough. Dan could only see out of a little part of the windshield because of the ice buildup. I was reaching out the window breaking ice off the wipers and clearing out what I could and watching the road from my side. A 1.5 hour drive took a little over 3 hours but we did finally make it to my in-laws and off the roads. As it turned out they actually closed I-84 shortly after we made it to Portland and as far as I know the road is still closed.

Here are a few pictures from the drive before it got too dark.

Trucks and cars lined up along the side of the road putting chains on.


This was when the roads were still kinda good. They got a lot worse.


Nothing but taillights.

1 comment:

Kristin said...

Oh my. I freak out major when driving on snow and ice. I'm glad you all made it safely.