When you last heard from me, we were preparing to go to a New Year’s wedding in Brandon Manitoba. Thursday rolled around, and the weather was getting a little rough down South, plus Erin was feeling full-on morning/afternoon/evening/night sickness. Anyway, William and I dropped her off at the MediClinic for some followup blood tests (everything is fine) and hit the mall to pick up some last minute travel supplies.

I made a stop at the SaskTel Mobility store in the mall, to break down and buy a cell phone. What I really want is a cell phone with a pay as you go plan that has good coverage of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. SaskTel’s pay as you go phones only have Saskatchewan coverage, and Telus doesn’t offer pay as you go phones in Saskatchewan. Rogers coverage is pretty spotty in rural Saskatchewan, so basically I’m out of options at that point.

So, I decided that I’d bite the bullet and buy a phone with a contract, and pay the crazy $20+++/month for a phone that I don’t plan to ever use. This was spurred primarily by the fact that we were going on a road trip through some rough weather.

I had my credit card on the counter, and pen in hand, ready to sign on the dotted line, when they told me that I failed the credit check, and I’d have to pay a $250 deposit for the privilege of being a virtually pure profit customer. I’ve been a SaskTel customer for 10 years. I’ve paid my bills regularly. I’ve never been refused a loan for any reason, and have always gotten good rates when I’ve had to borrow money. I was offended (rightly or wrongly, I was offended) so I picked up my credit card and ID, and walked out of the store. I had some words for them involving sex and travel, but I bit my tongue, and just walked out silently fuming.

Fast forward to that night at about 8:30, and we’re driving down a desolate stretch of highway that’s covered in drifts. I’m “following” a truck whose taillights I can see off in the distance, trying to hit his tracks through the drifts. Going 50Km/h, and keeping the rubber side down/shiny side up, between the ditches. I guess i missed the truck’s tracks on a particularly big drift, and the car went into a short skid, winding up in the snowbank on the shoulder of the road. We weren’t going very fast (probably less than 15 when we hit the snow) but fast enough to get essentially stranded on top of a big pile of snow in the middle of a blizzard, on a very desolate stretch of highway. The next car didn’t come by until about an hour later (thanks for stopping, Tanya!) and she had a cell phone with which we called a tow truck. I belatedly thought that I should have called Dave and Katriona’s to tell them that we’d be ok, and just a little later than we’d thought.

So, another hour and a bit goes by, and we see more headlights (none in the intervening time, btw.) Two sets in fact - a car, and a big truck. The car was my Mom’s car, being driven by Jonathan, with Dave in the passenger seat. The big truck was the tow truck that headed out from Moosomin when we called. We got towed out with no problems, and made it to Moosomin on the flatbed of the tow truck, without further incident.

So, that was the big adventure of the time off. We’re ok, the car is ok, and I don’t think William even really noticed that anything was wrong - we played cars in the front seat, and played on his xylophone, only starting the car for a couple of minutes every fifteen minutes or so (we had a full tank of gas, and the exhaust was clear) huddling under lots of blankets, and snacking on the plethora of food that we had in the car. We would have been fine in there until morning, but thankfully didn’t have to be.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I hereby declare this day to be Snow Day, the funnest day in the history of Springfield.” - Mayor Quimby