“Buzz Kill” Chapter 13. A Harrowing Road Trip to My First Home Exchange

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Starting earlier in the spring, we began planning for this December’s Christmas Historic Homes Tour. All year long we were plugging away at various aspects of the tour.

For myself, it was a relief this year not to have my home on the tour so I could concentrate on other things. I devoted myself more wholeheartedly to the marketing of the event, diving into designing a new graphic for our tagline, which was “Hats Off To History.”

The historic Fulton Mansion was one of the main tour sponsors, and Marsha, the Mansion’s director, had unearthed an antique photo related to the Mansion that also tied in well with our theme. George Fulton’s three granddaughters were posed in a fabulous but extremely faded photo. She brought it to one of our early meetings and asked me if I could do anything with it, and maybe use it in our brochure?

I jumped at the chance to work on this in my spare time, which gave me the opportunity to play around in one of my favorite software applications, Adobe Photoshop. I’d restored a historic photo of my own great-grandparents a few years back for my mom, and I knew I could improve on this one also. Starting in May and culminating in November when we had to go to press, the photos below show what I came up with. I was extremely proud of the before and after, and the final banner I put together for our brochure and tickets, considering I was an amateur graphic designer.

Early December saw me frantically finishing my own client projects and sewing myself a vintage-looking flapper dress for the tour. This year, in addition to putting on the tour, we decided to participate in Rockport’s Annual Christmas Parade, which took place on Saturday evening the weekend before. This meant designing and decorating a lighted float that advertised the homes tour—an additional, not-small thing to do.

Most of us ladies who comprised the tour committee were still working full time, and how we always managed to pile additional tasks upon ourselves was a thing of wonder. The parade and our float ended up being a lot of fun, but a lot of work beforehand.

After the tour weekend was over, I had about one week to get my house ready for my upcoming home exchange and get myself ready to leave town for close to a month. I cleaned the house thoroughly and locked away my valuables. I prepared a binder for the couple who would be staying at my house on what they might need to know about the Rockport area. I filled this binder with flyers from the local restaurants, local tours they might want to take (such as whooping crane tours and dolphin tours), maps of the area, flyers for fishing and kayaking guides, historic mansions that were open for tours, and popular beaches and birding trails in the area. If you liked the outdoors, Rockport was a great place to spend some time.

The pups would come with me, being seasoned travelers by now, but Tigger would stay behind and would be taken care of by the people I was exchanging with. I also had to leave behind instructions for her care and her vet information and authorizations, just in case.

I left town on December 21. Anyone who’s ever driven the barren byways of west Texas, eastern New Mexico, and eastern Colorado knows what a slog it is—long stretches of nothing and no one. In winter, it’s even worse. On top of that less-than-stimulating drive, I caught a cold right before I left so I was sick while driving, which made things bad for me. It made me so sleepy on those endless highways that there were times when I had to pull over because I was starting to nod off and veer into the other lanes. I purposely didn’t take any cold medicine because I knew that would make me drowsy as well.

Most of the day on December 22, I had to drive with the window open—in freezing temperatures—to keep myself awake with that shock of cold air. This made my nearly hairless pups miserably cold in the passenger seat.

But the biggest trauma of all occurred during what should have been my final day of traveling. In the late afternoon on December 23, I was arriving in southeastern Wyoming; at this point I only had to make a sharp turn west and I’d be a mere 6 hours from Salt Lake City. But heavy snow turned into a blizzard that caused near-whiteout conditions. I had not driven in anything like that since leaving my home state of North Dakota in 1979. I quickly realized I was not going to make it to Salt Lake, so I revised plans to stop in Cheyenne for the night.

The highways were completely isolated. I guess those smart locals had been watching the weather at home and stayed put, but of course I had not. I never turn on the TV when I’m in a hotel room, so this storm took me completely by surprise.

If it weren’t for the lone semi-truck whose taillights I was following, I could not tell where the freeway ended and the ditch began. It was a terrifying few hours of white-knuckle driving, crawling along at about 15 miles per hour, with dizzying, horizontal snow pelting the windshield. I couldn’t go any faster because my tires were frozen and would spin out under me every time I tried to speed up. With my eyes locked on those taillights ahead of me, I prayed the lights of Cheyenne would appear on the horizon soon.

Even with the heat blasting in my SUV, it was so cold in the car that the pups were shivering uncontrollably in the passenger seat. I piled as many blankets and clothing as I could find on top of them, but the cold penetrated everything.

I hadn’t felt so alone and so scared in a very long time. I knew if I veered off that road and into the ditch, that’s where I would stay until morning. And I knew what that could mean.

I ran through a mental checklist of the things one needed in your car to survive a night in freezing temperatures, things we knew by heart growing up: food, water, candles, matches, a flashlight or headlamp, space blankets or other warm clothing, a first-aid kit, a shovel, tow straps. Another warm body was always nice. Something to tie to your antenna to call attention to your car, once it got buried in snow. I wondered: did my car even have an aerial antenna anymore?

Well, this is what I had: water and a granola bar, two Chihuahuas, my winter coat and boots, and my cell phone with a rapidly dying battery. If I ended up in the ditch, I was screwed.

Finally, thank God, there it is.

A glow on the horizon of what looked like an exit and maybe…a gas station? A hotel? I followed the semi down the exit ramp and trembled with relief when I saw signs for some hotels. I pulled into the first one I came to and prayed they had a vacancy. A real shithole on the outskirts of Cheyenne, but I didn’t care. I noticed the truck had stopped too.

With wobbly legs I got out of my car and walked into the reception area. They were surprised to see anyone still out on the road, especially a woman traveling by herself. I checked in for the night and collapsed onto the bed, along with my babies. I shed a few tears of relief that I made it there unharmed. After about 20 minutes snuggled under the blankets with me, my pups finally stopped shivering.

***

I walked outside the next morning into blinding sunshine, a calm and brilliant blue-sky day. It was as if the universe was saying, “What? Is there a problem?” The snowplows had been out since 6 a.m. and already the major thoroughfares were cleared. I had forgotten how efficient people were who lived in snow country.

After I had breakfast, I drove into town and found a tire store to buy snow tires for my SUV. There was no way I was going to be caught like that again for the rest of this trip. An unexpected expense for sure, but I had to do it for my peace of mind. Losing control on the freeway the night before, time after time, scared the hell out of me. We strapped my regular tires onto the luggage rack on my rooftop, and I drove like that for the entire vacation and all the way home until I could get the tires swapped out again.

Because of that delay in Cheyenne, I didn’t arrive in Salt Lake City until Christmas Eve, about a day behind schedule. I bought some groceries and settled into the house with my pups. For several days I did nothing but a slow-motion recovery from the drive, and trying to get over my cold.

As I slowly felt better, I took longer walks with the dogs in the snow and got acclimated to the cold climate. The whole purpose of this winter exchange was to “play in the snow for a while,” and I was determined to spend as much time outdoors as possible. I found a nearby park and walked the dogs there almost every day, getting their tender Texas paws adjusted to the frozen ground.

About a week after I arrived, I heard a knock on the front door. When I opened it, a young boy of about 10 years old was standing there. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

“Hi!” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Um, hi. I’ve shoveled your sidewalks.”

I peered around him and saw that indeed, he had done so. The front porch, the walkway out to the front sidewalk, the driveway, and the sidewalk paralleling the street were all clear.

“Wow. I see that. That’s very nice, but why did you do that?”

“The couple that lives here, they pay me to shovel for them. Ten dollars each time. Are you related to them? They didn’t tell me they’d be gone…”

“Hmmm. They didn’t tell me anything about that. No, we’re not related. They are actually staying at my house in Texas right now, and I’m staying here. It’s a bit of a weird arrangement—we are trading houses, you might say. Well, you did a nice job, and I guess it’s worth $10. Let me get my wallet.”

So I paid the kid and he was happy, and it sure made it easier for me coming and going. I hadn’t planned on doing snow removal during my stay.

***

For the New Year’s Eve holiday, they had an event going on over December 29, 30, and 31 in their downtown area, culminating at midnight on the 31st. $15 got you in and the parking was free, so I went down there on the last day. They had crazy bands and DJs playing in open-air venues and even crazier people dancing in the snow wearing only shorts and T-shirts. Also ballet dancers and other arts performances, kid’s activities, and of course fireworks at midnight.

Were these people that much hardier than me?! It was in the mid-teens outside and I was bundled up in my sheepskin coat with only my nose exposed, and I was sure they would be going home with frostbitten vittles. It was a lot of fun to watch the performances, but mostly to people-watch that night.

For the last 2 weeks I was in Salt Lake, I took advantage of their indie movie theater, did some shopping, toured the Mormon Tabernacle and heard their famous choir perform on Sunday morning, toured the State Capitol building, and the home of Brigham Young. Other treats were touring the 2002 Winter Olympic Village on the University of Utah campus, and attending a Utah Grizzlies hockey game.

I also spent 2 days at their famous Family History Library^⁠1 and found some fascinating records regarding my ancestors who emigrated from Poland dating back to 1880 (ship manifests, citizenship certificates, US Census records). But the trail went cold quickly after that. For people who have great-grandparents born in Poland or Germany and didn’t emigrate, it was very difficult to find any information. The woman who was helping me told me that in Poland, census information wasn’t centralized and kept by city or county governments, but by local church parishes. And because Poland was conquered by Russia, Prussia, Austria, Germany (and others) before becoming independent, their local records were often destroyed. World War II, especially, destroyed many local church and civil recordbooks forever.

When I returned home, I sent what information I did find to my sister Mary Ellen, who took it and ran with it. She not only built our family tree on Ancestry.com, but a few years later published a historical novel based on our family’s genealogy.

I was hooked on this home exchange thing! Never in a million years would I have gone to Salt Lake City. I didn’t know anyone there and if the opportunity hadn’t presented itself, I wouldn’t have chosen it. Yet I enjoyed everything I did there and felt enriched by the culture, especially the genealogical library. That chance visit set off a chain of events that had a big impact on my life and the lives of my family.

Fortunately, my drive home was uneventful—no life-threatening repeat of treacherous winter travel. It took me forever to unload those snow tires though! Not a big market for them in south Texas.

Up next: Chapter 14. Kayaking Misadventures (Or, Do As I Say and Not As I Do)

Return to Chapter List

Previous: Chapter 12

Next: Chapter 14

To catch up on the backstory of A Buzz Kill Named Harvey, read Art and Artifice: A Memoir—A Story of Love, Deception, and Healing on the Texas Gulf Coast