As most good adventure stories do… it started off innocently enough…

Tiny flakes of snow (actually, they were more like tiny hailstones) dropped on my truck as I readied myself to head to Victoria for our annual Christmas Eve celebration. We do our Christmas on the eve so that everyone can then go home and have Christmas morning with their respective families.

On the drive down to Victoria, I took about forty pictures out the window of the truck to record the “amazing” amount of snow in the Houston area. (It wasn’t that amazing, but in places it would actually stay on the ground long enough to photograph.) Suffice it to say that none of those pictures will be posted here because in retrospect, they are pretty darn boring when compared to the ones that will follow.

As I reached Victoria County, the snow started to pick up a bit. It still wasn’t real snow and it still wasn’t real heavy, but it was impressive. When I reached Tim’s house, I was greeted by Brian and Scoot’s snowman (well, snow triangle, really)… tangible snow (sleet) that stuck around long enough to shape into something.

Kaitlyn posed with it to give some sort of reference to its size….

As we headed down to Mom’s house, I snapped what I thought would be a rare chance at a winter wonderland shot – the snow was picking up a bit…

With thoughts of snow behind, we made it into the house all gussied up for Christmas…

In no time at all, everyone settled in for typical holiday hi-jinx…

Scoot was there…

Brittney was there…

Bubba was there…

Reagan and Kaitlyn were the life of the party…

Brad and Randy did their part to liven things up…

Brian was on hand to make sure the Corona didn’t go to waste…

Blake and Sissy watched as the presents flowed…

Tim and I took this “2/3 of the Doelle Boys” shot…

After the presents were all handed out and the wrapping paper all ripped to shreds, we noticed that it was snowing REAL SNOW outside. Not only that, it was picking up…

Brittney and Scoot posed amidst the flakes…

Not to be outposed… Kaitlyn and I recorded the moment…

Then it was time for a group photo…

Brittney and I…

Scooter volunteered to make the first snow angel and did a damn fine job…

Just when we figured we had seen everything Ma Nature could throw our way – the snow started to pick up…

It was then that it started to dawn on everyone that if we were going to get home it would be wise to get started. A little slow on the uptake there – but hey, who was thinking about driving? We were all about fun in the snow. I got back to Tim’s house and saw that my truck was covered…

Tim’s house certainly didn’t look like South Texas…

I beat a hasty retreat amid numerous pleas that I stay the night. Okay, it wasn’t hasty – it was about 10 miles an hour. I reached Inez in about 20 minutes (a five minute drive normally.) Although the snow completely covered everything, it didn’t appear to be too deep and I figured that by the time I reached Wharton, it would lighten up anyway…

In retrospect, it was a very DUMB thing to do, but I drove on. Forgive the lack of pictures from this point, but when you are clutching the steering wheel in a death grip with a very high pucker factor working, you are not really in the mood to take snapshots.

I was able to get up to 20mph on long straight shots but on the curves it was all about avoiding the slide. You don’t realize just how much of an embankment is on those curves until you start sliding sideways while taking one at 10mph. You know that “no brake – turn into the skid” thing really works. There were three points during the drive when the back end of my truck started to catch up with the front without warning. When you take one of those banked curves the tendency is for the truck to slide down to the inside of the curve. With all the weight on the front wheels, the ass-end would start sliding down the hill – I would let off the gas, turn down the curve and it would catch enough to get around the curve.

I later discovered that if you get up to the top lip of the curve and put one set of wheels into the fresh snow (which was now a foot and a half deep where noone had driven) you could maintain traction all the way around. You can use those ridges cut into the road to judge how far off the road you were going. (You know those ones that howl when you drive over them to keep sleepy drivers from running off the road.)

It took me three and a half hours to reach Wharton (the half-way point.) The entire trip is normally only one and a half hours. Along the way there were a total of 59 vehicles in the ditches… I am sure there were many more, but I couldn’t see the other side of the highway through the driving snow and could barely see ten or fifteen feet around myself. Here is the only shot I got while driving…

Once I reached Wharton, things started to lighten up and by the time I reached Rosenberg I saw a stripe on the road for the first time. The only hazards from that point on were icy bridges… and BOY were these bridges icy. Each time I approached one, I slowed well before, totally let off the gas, pointed it straight across and gave it no opportunity to get me sliding. It took me another two hours after I left Wharton, making the total trip 5 1/2 hours of hell.

I told my mom before I left that I figured I am in the top 2% in intelligence and I would drive until I saw 98 people in the ditch – that would be my sign that I am pushing my luck. What I failed to calculate was the couple hundred people that probably thought better of making the trip at all – by that calculation, I pushed my luck waaaaaaay too far.

Am I glad I did it? You bet… anytime you can do something harrowing without injury it is a rush. Not only that, it is one heck of a story.

Would I do it again? No way! I saw too many better equipped vehicles in the ditch and felt more than my share of slides that started without any warning and seemingly unrelated to anything I did.