A Winter Wonderland

There is a saying that is relevant to anyone that has lived in North Dakota, "If you can drive in North Dakota, you can drive anywhere."  Every winter I spend driving in this state, that saying becomes a little more true.

As I was driving to the Fargo airport around 11:30 last night and reaching speeds of around 75 mph as my windshield wipers whisked away the rain, I thought to myself, "Where is the snow?"  In all my years, and as far as both of my parents can remember, there has never been a year where there was no snow on Christmas day.  This thought is kind of depressing in a way, but I can live with one brown Christmas.  With temperatures reaching the 50s in late-December, and then plummeting overnight, the driving can be a little tricky in this area.  The weather can quickly circulate between clear, to snowing, to raining, and back to clear again in just hours.  As I neared Fargo, the road conditions drastically changed and I quickly began to see car after car in the ditch as I drove by.  I reached my destination eventually, but then had to turn around for the return trip.  The trip home was an entirely different story as I was only able to reach 50 mph for a short period of time before I was forced to slow down more.  Let me tell you, almost 60 miles at that speed is painstakingly slow.  Again, more and more cars pulled over on the side of interstate or in the ditch.  When I arrived home again, I began thinking about my years driving a car in this state.  This particular trip didn't seem that bad.  In my almost eight years of winter driving in North Dakota, I have driven in some extreme weather. (Probably shouldn't have been driving in most of them.)  However, once you have lived in this state long enough, you almost get used to driving on terrible roads in the worst conditions imaginable.  With a little common sense, it is really not that hard, but common sense is one thing that many people lack, including the person that wrapped their car around a light pole last night.  I would say they were doing 80 mph easily in an area where everyone else was going 60.  Common sense isn't common.