Holiday Travels

I had a small adventure traveling from Charlotte to Columbus for Christmas this year...  Tiffani and I have decided to be more serious about our relationship and are dating and officially boyfriend/girlfriend...clearly demonstrated by our Facebook status:


lol, nice job variable object coding facebook.  Tiffani and I went to a couple Christmas parties and looked fabulous:



anyways, Tiffani had bought a plane ticket to come home for Christmas a few months ago before we really knew each other.  I planned to drive becuase it was cheaper so she looked into canceling her flight, she was able to get an account credit that can be used anytime within 12 months from the purchase date--so we were having our second Charlotte/Columbus road trip, yay!


seriously, we were actually excited.  We really enjoyed the trip at Thanksgiving and looked forward to spending time with each other and then seeing our families.  We got on the road around 12:45pm on Friday, 12/18/09.  The weather forecast did call for winter weather but not until later that evening in VA/WV.  As we started driving North on I-77 flurries started and traffic began to move a little slower.


We stopped to get gas and food in Virginia where I-81 and I-77 run together for about eight miles.  After we got back on the freeway things started to go even slower and we had just gotten back on I-77 exclusively when we came to a crawl.  five minutes later we came to a stop, just past the on-ramp from exit 41, Pepper's Ferry Road in Wytheville, VA--that is where we sat from around 4:00pm until 10:30pm.  at that time we knew we weren't making it home that night and had been checking nearby hotels for availability--all were booked.  Turned around and drove on the shoulder and successfully got to the on ramp and drove up it to get on I-77 South.  our plan was just to try and get back to Charlotte and attempt our journey sometime on Saturday or Sunday.  we slowly drove about 20 miles South and ran into another traffic jam.  This time we didn't want to sit and wait on the freeway so we turned around and drove to an exit we had just passed.  we luckily made it up a hill and into a "lovely" gas station -- a Citgo Kangaroo Express.




This is where we spent the night and stayed until Saturday morning, 12/19/09.  Around 7:30am the freeway looked like it was moving southbound.  Once we got moving it was slow, around 45 mph.  we eventually got home around 10:30am -- about 22 hours after we left.  I suppose we learned a lesson about attempting travel during an incoming winter storm but you just never know.  We were just glad to be safe throughout the whole expedition.  We safely made the trip on Sunday 12/20/09 in about eight hours.