I am busy finishing up my time in Manitoba, the days are flying by. Yesterday was exciting, I took Max with me to church in Steinbach, we had a fulfilling time at the worship service. I usually go the 9:30 traditional service but went to the contemporary one at 11, so I didn't have to wake Max up until 9:45 after he milked until 2 am. I was a little worried about the weather forecast of light snow and strong winds, but the drive in was pretty good, although the snow was starting to really blow across the road as we approached Steinbach.
After church we drove through the A&W drive-thru and got two specials. Mama burger, fries and pop, root beer for me, and cola for Max ( in December he asked me "why, why would you drink that stuff? It's horrible!") We ate our fries until we got to Mitchell, then I had both hands on the wheel as the blowing snow was worse on the two lane part of the 52 highway, so I didn't try eating my burger. Neither did Max, I had to get him to take the bag with his burger and the rest of his cola when we arrived at Providence University College.
We turned onto the 59 highway and realized why there was a blizzard warning, as we looked into the whiteout and hoped we'd make it the short distance to the school (normally you can practically see it from the turn!) We crawled along and I put on omy 4 way flashers like the other cars we saw. The short distance seemed very long, but we found the turn onto the Otterbourne Road. We made the turn and drove very slowly to Prov as the visibility did not improve in the new direction.
I was sure we had missed the turn to the parking lot, but Max spotted it after we somehow saw the big cement sign through the snow. I know the road pretty well (considering that I made the drive hundreds of times when I went there for my TESOL degree 8 years ago) but the 5-10 feet you could see if you were lucky was scary. I drove through a fair size drift in the driveway and let Max out by the student center to walk through the storm to the dorm with his bags.
Then I headed back into the storm, hoping the driving would get better once I turned onto the 52 again, which it did, I even ate my hamburger halfway back to Steinbach. However, there was an anxious few minutes while I tried to decide when (whether?) to turn back onto the 59 highway, looking both ways into a while wall. I even put down the front windows, trying to hear if anything was coming, then prayed and pulled out as fast as I could. The last 40 kilometers home were more driving through drifts that were piling up in places, then fighting blowing snow since I driving in the forest then.
Max is planning to come out to the farm again next weekend with the holiday Monday, but most weekends he will stay there so he can get all his homework done. This semester he has moved up to the university prep English course. This week he has been learning about thesis statements and writing papers.
Later I drove to our son Josh's house (only two kilometers) for the Super Bowl party, and there were some very big drifts to maneuver around and through, especially on the way home. Today I stayed home and got into the final house cleaning and organizing in the hopes of getting it decent looking when I leave and hopefully when I return in the summer.
Garry and I have been playing facebook message tag, so I don't have anything to report from over there in Ukraine, I'll be flying out Thursday and get there Friday afternoon.
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