Whoa.

My friends (do I ever sound like a former presidential candidate?)

This has been a heck of a week. Between voting, working, various meetings in Mandan and all sorts of other things, it's been crazy. On top of all that, I survived a BLIZZARD. You don't have to tell me twice, but yes, we did know that we were moving to the northern plains. The meeting was in Mandan, ND, which is the sister city of Bismark. As I was heading out the door on Wednesday, Abby was acting more worried than usual about me leaving. She mentioned shortly afterwards that there was badweather approaching Mandan. I travelled on I-94 heading west, the weather was quite windy, but fine for the most part. Bismark was a different story. When I got there, it was 15 degrees colder and very overcast. I went in a store for 20 mins and by the time I came out, the bottom had dropped out and there was a ton of wind and rain. That evening, it didn't snow at all, but it rained up until midnight. At 3 AM, I was awakened by a tapping sound on my hotel room window. It ended up being sleet, which didn't stop until today. There were 40 mile per hour winds with gusts over 50. 18 inches of snow fell, and in some places, there was a thick layer of ice under it all. The reason I was there was because of the annual meeting of the Dakota Baptist Convention. It was a great time of meeting people from all over northern plains. We were missing around 40 people, but it was such a blessing to meet everyone. Ryan Bell at Dakota Hills, and Andre' and his lovely family at the Indian reservation on the Candian Border were just two of the several great people I met.

Here are some blizzard highlights.

1. Wind so strong that when you're facing it, you have trouble breathing.

2. Being blown over by the wind after getting to the gas station, only to find that it was closed.

3. Learning that my money clip fell out of my pocket when I fell.

4. Going out to find it, and getting blown over again.

5. Driving back from the church with a car full of people, and hearing an older pastor ask, "why is that pole in the middle of the road,?" then telling him that was the sidewalk, not the road.

6. Fishtailing and almost losing control of my car on I-94 coming back.

7. Experiencing 50 mph gusts of wind against my car.

8. Talking to someone who spent the night in his car.

9. Seeing hotel workers that opted to stay the night rather than brave the elements.

10. Taking 2 hours to get my car out of a parking lot. Some lady also decided to park her car in the middle of the lot, and the snow drifted up 6 feet beside her.

11. Walking through snow drift that was up to my waist that had blown up against my car.