Made it to IL

The drive to IL is getting pretty old, to say the least. It normally takes about 13hrs to drive from Enid to Batavia (outside Chicago), IL and usually we leave OK around 7-8pm and drive straight through the night and get to IL around 9am. This time, we decided to leave around 2pm the day before and drive to Springfield, MO (about 5 hrs from Enid) and spend the night. That way we were still in the local area, which according to the military is 350 miles of where you're stationed, and we also beat the weather they got in Enid last night. Our plan worked perfectly until we got to St. Louis this morning. We left Springfield around 7am, and our GPS said our ETA was 2:44pm in Batavia. However, while driving through St. Louis, we saw 2 trucks flipped upside down on the side of the road, one car that had gone completely through a fence and halfway down a BIG hill, an RV laying on it's side, and a semi trailer bed - actually just the bottom of it, since the rest had burnt to a crisp. That was all within about 15 miles of each other. The roads were mostly okay, some of the bridges were a little slick in places, but we had our 4wheel drive Explorer and it handled the roads fine. However, then we ran into a "wintry mix", which made driving a little harder, mainly because something is wrong with the washer fluid on the SUV and it doesn't work at all. So everyone was kicking up wet stuff on the road, so the windshield got dirty REALLY quick and if we tried to use the wipers (without the fluid) it would streak and you seriously couldn't see out the front of the car. When we got within 2-3 hours of Batavia, the weather took a turn for the worse, and so did the roads. The left lane was pretty much covered in snow and the right lane had patchy snow in places. The traffic in Chicago was going about 15mph. It was bad. All 4 lanes (one way) of traffic were moving slow and none of the lanes were completely clear. We finally got to Mark's parents around 5:30pm. We're not sure if it would have been better to drive through the night or not, but we're both sore from sitting in the car for 5 hours yesterday and 10 hrs today... And I think I'm going to be able to drive from IL to AZ (26 hours of DRIVING alone, not including stops) when I'm 34 weeks pregnant... I'm only (almost) 17 now, and that was rough. I guess we'll see how that goes when we get there.

Anyway, we're in IL now. We'll be in Batavia until Friday AM, and then we're heading to my parents house in Galena. We're heading back to OK on Tuesday, so hopefully the weather will be better then. It's supposed to get bad up here Thursday night too... just in time for our 3 hr drive to Galena. Yay. That being said, it's SOOO pretty up here now. There were big, huge snowflakes and all the trees look so pretty with the snow on them. I love it. I miss the snow they have here. It's just not the same in OK, and it won't be the same at all in AZ. I can't wait to go to my parents house and sit by their fireplace all day long and play my piano that I miss so much!