Storm Warnings

On Saturday, I was faced with a minor weather dilemma.

A storm had been moving through the area and I was slated to drive an hour away to teach a training at Defiance College that morning.

(The beautiful Defiance College library)

I had been hearing horror stories about the roads and the blowing snow and how bad it was out in rural open areas, which make up the final half of that route. My parents called, worried about me driving. A glance out my apartment window in Toledo, where there were no current weather warnings, showed a car off the road, getting dug out. Was that a bad omen?

As the trainer, it's my call to cancel a training and, while it was tempting to just stay home for a leisurely "snow day," I wasn't convinced the roads would be something I couldn't handle. Not to mention that I wasn't keen about having to deal with rescheduling a training, contacting everyone in the class, etc., and just having to do it again on another date.

In the end, I decided the odds for a calculated risk were in my favor. I had a full gas tank, boots, snow pants, blanket, food, water, AAA card, cell phone and South Dakota winter driving experience, I decided to just see how far I could get and turn back if it got too bad. I called to say I would be late.

Turned out all worry was for naught. The roads were perfectly passable and I made it fine.

In fact, I would have easiliy made it on time if I wouldn't have spent time online looking at weather reports, trying to figure out if I should cancel. Oh well.

In the end, I'm glad I made the trip. Although one person emailed saying he was stuck in his driveway (so it must have been bad some places), three of the five students scheduled did show up -- including one that drove down from the Toldo area. So I would have felt like a real jerk/wuss if she would have made that trip only to learn it was canceled...