we spent Christmas day in the car

on Christmas eve my in-laws flew in from overseas. the next day we all (me, my husband, the two kids, and the ILs) drove down to southern california. when we left at 11am, it was raining at home. by the time we got onto i-5 the rain stopped, but it was so windy the car was pushed side to side for hours, it seemed. we even saw tumbleweeds racing across the freeway, some even exploding upon collision with cars.

after a few hours, we even happened upon a dust storm. it was so dense that we encountered stop-and-go traffic, where the dust was so dense that visibility was probably no more than 50 feet. then just as fast as we had to stop and crawl along, the fog, er, dust, blew away and we were able to resume our normal driving speed.

we finally encountered grapevine and the los angeles mountains, and rain. off in the distance i could see saw snow-capped peaks. as we ascended, i began to see snow along the side of the road. and as we kept going on, i noticed that the rain wasn't splattering onto the windshield anymore -- it was just blowing off to the side. that's when i realized this isn't rain, this is snow!

we finally arrived in southern california and were thankful to be in one piece. i think the hardest part was the many potty breaks we had to take for the kids. what should've been a five-hour drive ended up a seven-hour drive. but whoa, what an experience. i never thought that in one single day i'd drive through rain, then wind, then tumbleweeds, then dust storm, then snow. especially in california. driving to warm-weathered southern california.