Mother Nature thows an icy punch; we battle back!

Lauren and I finally make it home!

So the plan last week was to take a few days and visit the Big Apple; eat our way across Manhattan, attend a few Broadway shows, do a little shopping and enjoy some wintry weather.

We managed all the things we could control -- food, shows and shopping. But Mother Nature held on to all the white and fluffy stuff that we were hoping would turn the area into a winter wonderland. Turns out you really shouldn't fool around with Mother Nature.

She decided to follow us back to the Land of Cotton and unleash her wintry bag of tricks. It's been frigid the last few days in my little corner of the world and today all the white and fluffy stuff we were hoping to spot in New York is covering the ground here.

My neighborhood certainly looks like a winter wonderland, but a few inches of snow in the deep south causes all sorts of problems, especially when it turns to ice. The entire region is in gridlock at the moment, major highways and thoroughfares, boulevards and secondary roads filled with vehicles quickly going nowhere!

My daughter Lauren, a teacher in Cobb County, headed home when school officials called it quits in the early afternoon. The 20-minute commute took at least three hours and she ended up abandoning her car in a church parking lot about a mile from our house.

I trekked through the ice and snow -- now there's a phrase I don't use very often -- to meet Lauren on the last leg of her journey. Together we slogged through the wet and chilly stuff, working our way around slippery spots and the occasional car that had lost its battle with the elements.

In fact, just a block from our neighborhood, we came upon a sedan that was inching its way around a particularly treacherous curve in the road, its wheels spinning on a carpet of ice. Somewhat foolishly we volunteered to push the car over a slick spot in the road. It's a battle we lost. A moment later the car and its driver were in a nearby ditch. 

I'm pretty sure there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars in ditches across the metro area or abandoned on highways that, for the moment, have become expansive and chilly parking lots. Thousands of folks are stuck where they are, hunkered down and hoping to make it through the night.

So I'm really happy to report that everyone in my family has made it home. We just had a splendid dinner -- thanks, Josh -- and my granddaughter Bailey has been fed, diapered and is fast asleep in a warm and toasty room.

This, then, is my long and windy way to simply announce that Mother Nature might have won a few skirmishes on this cold and chilly day. But I'm thinking, at least for the moment, we won the battle!