The Perfect Storm.

The gang checked out of our cabin at 11am this morning, thinking that we'd have enough time to make it back to the city in time for church. Unfortunately, we made the crucial mistake of not checking the weather and sticking to our own schedule. For some reason, missed the memo that about a foot and a half of snow had fallen overnight. If we had paid attention to what was going on around us, we would have definitely left earlier. Instead, our ignorance to the forces of nature surrounding us made for a very interesting ride back.

Some of the images I saw on the road were absolutely astonishing. When exiting off the highway to get to the nearest gas station, we noticed that the cars were moving at such a slow pace that even one of them had a snowman placed on top of its roof! Yeah, in my 22 years on this earth, including my experiences growing up in Russia, this was one of my most intense snowstorms to date.

It normally takes some four odd hours to drive up to Lake Tahoe from San Francisco, However, on our return trip, a massive snowstorm hit, causing the roads to become treacherous and backed up as far as the eye could see. It took our car a total of four hours to simply travel three miles to get on to thehighway leading out of Tahoe! Yet even with a total travel time of about nine and a half hours, our car was the fastest one in our fleet of three vehicles that made it back to the city. From what I've gathered, Jeff's car engine actually gave out, stranding him, Jason, Lisa, and Toadie (C.Park) up on the side of the road. After talking to them, I found out that they'll have to spend the night up there and find a different way back into the city tomorrow.

I hope they're alright.