Dangerous Ice !!!

I'm pretty much a single parent for a while.  Steve has been spending his days at Daktronics and his evenings at the Swiftel Center in the concession stand.  This weekend, he's in Sioux Falls for the Summit League Basketball tournament working in the media room.  Since the evenings there get fairly late and the weather isn't particularly cooperative, he's staying with friends in Sioux Falls tonight. 
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Last night we took Taylor to my friends' house to spend the night so she didn't have to go to gymnastic today.  This morning, Brittney, Riley, Zeke, Anthony and I headed to Sioux Falls at 6:30am.  We were crusing about 77 mph for the first 20 miles and then it started raining.  A few miles farther down the interstate, I could feel the van tires slipping and we were suddenly sliding down the road instead of driving.  Within just a mile or so, we were slowed down to 15 mph and saw two serious rollovers.  There were also lots of cars in the ditch and along the side of the road.  Most cars had been able to slow down but still couldn't stop so by the time their vehicles came to a stop, they just ended up in various positions along the side of the road.  It really got tricky when we were only going 5-10 mph and couldn't get enough traction to get up the hills on the road.  It was basically a matter of pushing the gas pedal gently just enough and then slowly rotating the steering wheel side to side, since the back end of the van would automatically go the opposite direction as the front wheels.  I had to do that all the way up every hill and so did all the other vehicles.  The kids and I prayed that God would get us safely to an exit and keep all our team members and families safe because it was a very dangerous situation. 
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It seemed like an eternity when we finally spotted an overpass but as we slowly approached it, I realized that it didn't have any exit or entrance ramps.  So we continued on and continued praying.  A few more miles down the road, as we came over the crest of a large hill, I saw a semi parked at the bottom.  As I made the slow, treacherous slide down the hill, I tried to switch over into the passing lane so I didn't run into the semi at the bottom.  We swerved and slid all the way down, but by the time we reached the bottom, we were safely in the other lane.  As we approached the next hill, we saw an underpass.  And this one had an exit ramp.  Because of all the ice, it was impossible to make movement of the steering wheel without deciding way ahead of time and then doing it very slowly.
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The closer we got to the exit ramp, the more cars we saw stopped along the side of the road and along the ramp.  It looked like they had all decided the interstate was too dangerous and took the exit.  Then some couldn't make the turn and tried to stop.  And others  made the turn onto the ramp and then simply collided with each other because no one could slow down, turn or stop.  I said a quick prayer out loud for God to let us know if we should try to get off at the exit or keep going.  As we slowly approached, I saw a gap in cars and trailers and slowly tried to manuever the van through and down the exit ramp.  We finally made it off the interstate and I thanked God for keeping us safe!
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Just to give you a better idea of exactly how slippery and dangerous the interstate was at that time, It was raining and the temp gauge in the van read 30 degrees.  Our coache's wife, Becca, spun around and slid to the side of the road in her car.  One of our team families tried to pick up her and her baby.  Because they thought that her car was sticking too far out into the road, one mom simply pushed the car farther over a few feet leaning against it.  Then Becca tried to carry her son to the other car in his infant car seat but couldn't even get enough traction to walk while carrying him.  So she ended up putting the car seat on the side of the road and giving it a push to the other car.
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Once our van was safely off the interstate, I just followed our GPS (Thank you Pickards!!!!) to the nearest gravel road.  I grew up in the country and know that the best road to be on while it's icy is gravel.  I had traction again.  I drove on gravel all the way into Sioux Falls.  I called Steve and told him not to get on the interstate and then I took a moment and thanked God for helping us make it safely off the interstate and allowing us to make it to the meet.  Because we had left home early, we weren't even that late.  And all our team members, families and coaches made it safely!