Snow stories...

At roughly 11 AM, Saturday, we passed through Cannon Falls heading south towards Rochester and the big left turn to take us, via Interstate 90, to LaCrosse. As the miles passed the sleet, which had been an annoyance in the Twin Cities was now heavy and the road was covered with ice the consistency of mud and slippery enough to turn one small twitch of the steering wheel into uncontrolled trajectory.

Looking out over the fields, now white, and the road now gray with ice my thoughts were first about the long journey ahead as the weather turned worse and the mph went down. Four hours to LaCrosse? Five? Then they turned to vertical LaCrosse with its winding driveways to homes tucked into valleys and the brunt of the storm sweeping by at that moment. My wife and I talked about it a bit, then there was silence, and when the opportunity presented itself we turned back north and went home.

A few miles from where we turned we stopped at a local gas station and made the calls. Everyone was fine with staying home. There was already a foot of snow on the ground, then rain and sleet, and another foot was expected. The hotel we were supposed to stay at still hadn't gotten their parking lot cleared. LaCrosse was locked down and would be for some time. Perhaps we could have made it down but we would not have gotten back, at least not on Sunday.

The truth is that I wasn't happy with having to turn around and 20 years ago who knows what I would have done. Caution triumphed over duty and part of me is glad because the news this morning indicated that around 30 inches of snow had fallen in Winona, Minnesota, just north of LaCrosse. I made the right decision.

Does this mean I'm getting mature or just old?