Monday, 12-18-95

The temperature got down to 12 degrees Sunday night, but we were toasty-warm in our motorhome. We left Gallup at about 9 o’clock this morning and we were going to try to get to Oklahoma City to stop for the night. We saw snow most of the way. It seemed that we were following a snow storm. We had partly cloudy skies for most of the day as we drove east on I-40. As we approached Texas, the sky got darker and the road began to get wet with snow on the ground next to the roadway. We were planning on getting to Amarillo by nightfall and continuing on to Oklahoma City to arrive by 10:30PM.

About 30 miles west of Amarillo the road got slick all of a sudden and we came across two cars that had just spun out on the ice. One had turned over and there was a Texas State snow plow on site to help the unfortunate drivers. That will get your attention real fast. Traffic slowed down from 60MPH to about 25 MPH and got backed up. We were traveling with 18-wheelers all around us driving on packed snow and ice. At one point our speed was reduced to 10MPH. There was a time a big tractor-trailer rig was right next to us when it started to swerve a little bit. We were getting concerned that we might be pushed off the road. Then our motorhome started to fishtail a little and slide toward the center divider. I slowed down to about 5MPH to regain control. Then I was able to get back up to a "speedy" 10MPH.

A dual line of tail lights were visible as far as we could see ahead of us and a dual line of head lights as far as we could see behind us. The off ramps were snowed-in with up to two feet of snow and I couldn't see where the edges of the off-ramps were located. We felt we could get stuck if we tried to take one of the exits. The result was that we felt like we were in a very hazardous forced march. Finally, after 30 frightening miles and two hours in blowing snow, we saw an exit that was clear. We took the exit and it led us to a shopping center. I’ve never been so glad to pull in to a Target Store parking lot.

We just sat there for awhile and checked the maps to find out where we were. It turned out that we left the freeway at the first exit on the west side of Amarillo Texas. The map showed that a KOA campground was on the other side of town about 11 miles away. We decided to use the city streets to get there rather than get back on the Interstate. That turned out to be a good decision.

The city streets were mostly clear of ice and snow and there wasn't very much traffic. There weren’t many people foolish enough to be out in that storm. We found our way to the Amarillo KOA where we spent the night. Just as we drove in, at about 7:30PM, my pager went off. It was a message from our son wanting to know if we had gotten to Amarillo yet. That was a surprise to have a message drop out of the sky right in to our motorhome.

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