Road Trip Diary: Thursday, February 3rd

Before 'really' getting on the road, we had driven up to Tunica, MS and stayed at a casino hotel there (they charge a lot less and are just as nice as any other standard issue hotel). We didn't get in until late Wednesday night, and knowing that Thursday was our shortest drive distance-wise, we opted to sleep in later than originally planned, as well as going to have breakfast in the buffet area and even did a little gambling! (Mom, Brooke, and me sitting around the Roulette table...good times!) 

As it got to be about noon, I started commenting that maybe we should get on the road. One of the men at the table asked where we were headed and I told him our ultimate goal was California, but for the day, we just needed to get to Oklahoma City. This guy was a truck driver of sorts, and said he was staying an extra night in Tunica because "You can't get to OKC. The roads are too bad."  

 We didn't really have a choice. I don't think we would have attempted driving if the blizzard were still happening, but we had to take a shot at driving through its aftermath. So knowing we might have an uphill battle, we hit the road. Getting through Arkansas was a piece of cake, and en route we saw signs for 'Toad Suck, AR' -- they say you learn something new every day! Somewhere just west of the AR/OK state line, and somewhere around 6:00 we estimated we would arrive at our hotel in OKC around 8:00. This was shortly before Brooke found herself driving an average of 25 MPH because the Interstate was covered in snow and ice. And not smooth ice rink ice. Bumpy patchy potholey ice. For the first 50 or so miles, we were convinced we'd drive out of it, we must have just been in a really podunk county that didn't have the proper resources.

We realized this estimation was wrong when we hit the Oklahoma County line (of which OKC is, of course, the county seat). From the time we began our 25 MPH trek until we were finally on non-iced roads: just shy of 6 hours. We checked in at the hotel just before midnight, four hours later than normal driving conditions would have permitted.