Snow and the South

For the past few years our family chooses a driving destination in the US to spend the last week of the year. What I mean by driving is that we can drive ourselves there and back. These have included in the past places such as Savannah, GA, Orlando, FL, Cleveland, OH, Atlanta,GA, Memphis & Nashville, TN.
In general these were destinations that could be covered in a day’s time. But two years ago we decided to break away from that mold and decided to drive to San Antonio, TX. It took us two days to get from New Jersey to San Antonio. We stayed overnight in Memphis, TN.
But before I just get stuck with a trip from two years ago the main reason why I am writing this is because this year we decided to drive to New Mexico. We knew it would take us a couple of long day drives, between 18 to 20 hours a day.
But the thing we did not expect was that there would be a blizzard that affected Oklahoma and other states. The only reason I’m only mentioning Oklahoma is because it was the state we had to drive through on our way to New Mexico, our final destination.
As we crossed the border from Arkansas into Oklahoma we started noticing ice on the road, together with cars stranded on both sides of the road. The worst section was from Henryetta to Oklahoma City, a little bit over 90 miles that should only take around 90 minutes or less (based on a speed of 70 miles per hour) took over 3 and ½ hours to complete. What aggravated me the most was not the weather conditions, the ice, the snow on the ground but the lack of total preparation on the state of Oklahoma. In this day and age, where we know in advance when we will have a hurricane and its intensity, it is hard to believe that states are not prepared to clean the roads as soon as it starts coming down, or at least as soon as it is over. But, based on the amount of stranded vehicles, and the lack of plows that we saw on the road (4) that tells me that they took this storm very lightly. To make matters worse I then heard on TV that their budget for the DPW (Department of works) was almost out. This is what I love about conservative states, instead of being prepared, which in my book means maybe raising taxes to cover for these possible things during the winter months, they prefer to mislead the public by saying that taxes can stay low, and then let its citizens be stranded on roads because of their shortsightedness. Politicians are more interested in getting themselves re-elected, and to defend the interest of the big fish who finance their campaigns than in the well being of the majority of people.
I used to complain in New Jersey because I felt that many times they take too long to clean the roads, but after this experience I don’t think I will ever do that again.
As far as the rest of our vacation is concerned we had a wonderful time visiting this wonderful country blessed with an amazing variety of landscapes, nationalities and heritages.