snow route

To get to my parents, the route is I-40 to I-81 to I-77 to I-74 to hwy 52 to hwy 109. We only made it Friday to the I-81 section near Kingsport, TN. I drove the first 4 hours (what should have been half of the trip) and Ryan took over just as the weather got bad. At this point in our trip, we were stopped behind a jack-knifed semi truck and just waiting for someone in front of us to move.

Even though this isn't the best picture, it shows the situation best. The 2010 Camaro is stuck behind a jack-knifed semi. The lights to the far right belong to a truck heading to Winston-Salem. We followed that truck for a while, watching it struggle to get enough traction to get up the hills. At one point, the semi just started sliding sideways down a banked curve.

After about 5 hours and only going about 5 miles, we decided it was best to try to find somewhere to spend the night. They obviously weren't doing anything to improve the road conditions and more and more drivers were getting stranded as cars filled the ditches and median.

Thanks to the GPS, we were able to see which exits had hotels. After calling, we found out that there weren't any vacancies until exit 63, Airport Parkway, at the Red Carpet Inn. After getting off the exit (and having to help push 3 cars out of the way on the ramp) and seeing a handful of cars ditched at the bottom of a LARGE hill, we realized why they still had rooms. We parked and hiked to the top, happy that we weren't having to sleep in the car.

This is the view from the hotel parking lot of I-81 on Sabbath morning.

Ryan helped some others out then got our car out of the place we had left it overnight. We decided to get back on the road before what had melted turned into ice.

By then, the plows were out and spreading a sand mixture on the roads. It was still icy in spots, but we were finally able to cruise again.

I'm not sure if this is after getting on I-77 in Wytheville, VA or before. The oncoming traffic looked like this much of our trip. You can see the slush in the left lane heading our direction. It kept switching from 2 cleared lanes to only one, quite unexpectedly at times.

At about 2:00p, we pulled into my parents' driveway. They weren't sure we'd even make it that far into their neighborhood with steep hills in either direction from their house. Needless to say, we were glad to be off the road!