In his April Conference address, Elder Holland said that one of his maxims is "no misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse." I fully intended this entry to be a whole lot of whining, and I'll tell you why.
Yesterday, I had to drive to Milwaukee to pick Sarah up at the airport as she returned from her trip to Mount Vernon. It's a long drive--3 hours--and I had just taken her down on Thursday. As I got ready to leave, I called her to see if her plane was on time. She said that the waiting passengers had been told that the plane would be about 50 minutes late, but that there was severe weather in Milwaukee, so they wouldn't take off until the weather cleared. Now, it was about 42 degrees out, which is unusual for winter here, so I looked out the window. Yep, a little foggy, from all the evaporation of the snow in the "warm" weather. So, I didn't know what to do. If I waited until I knew that Sarah's plane had taken off, she'd be waiting for me for two hours and we'd get home very late. At the same time, I didn't want to get down there and have her flight cancelled and be stuck there overnight. I finally left about 2:30.
On the way down to Stevens Point, I pondered which way I should go. Between Stevens Point and Madison, there is pretty much nothing for 100 miles. And the freeway crosses an agricultural area that is very flat, where everything blows across the road. I was afraid that the fog would be worse that way. Going by way of Oshkosh and Fond du Lac is much more interesting, but you drive by a lot of water and that creates fog. I finally decided to go the Oshkosh route. This had one added advantage. I would be able to stop somewhere civilized and call Sarah to see if her plane was on time.
This is where the whining is supposed to come in. Gosh, it was bad! Between Oshkosh and Fond du Lac, there were some points where I couldn't even see 5 feet in front of me. Traffic, for the most part, was zipping along unconcernedly, but I was definitely cussing out myself, the weather, the stupid airline for being cheaper from Milwaukee, etc. It was very scary, but I didn't know what to do besides go on. I thought that there was no way Sarah's plane could land. After driving for 1 1/2 hours, I tried to call Sarah, but she didn't answer. I then called Janet, who looked online and said that the plane had apparently taken off. This is totally crazy, I thought to myself. But I persevered and about 40 miles out of Milwaukee, the fog suddenly evaporated. As I was turning off on the exit ramp to the airport, Sarah called and said that she had just landed.
After picking her up, we decided that we would try the other route home--to Madison, then turning north. Sarah drove and it was distinctly better--hardly any fog until we got to Madison. As we took the ramp north, we saw several police cars with their lights on. We passed one overturned car and could see a car on fire on the other side of the road. As we went north, we noticed that there was a long, long backup on cars and trucks going southbound. Wow, we thought, good thing we're headed north. There was a little fog, but nothing compared to what I'd driven through. We made it home safely, only 10 minutes later than we expected.
Imagine my chagrin this morning when I read this news:

MADISON, Wis. — Dozens of cars were involved Sunday in two separate pileups that killed two people on a foggy stretch of highway just east of the city.
The Wisconsin State Patrol shut down Interstate 90 in both directions, causing a traffic backup for miles.
Flares lining the interstate's lanes cut through the fog as traffic crawled north of the accident sites. Visibility was about 100 yards. Squad cars and tow trucks streamed toward the accidents as law enforcement agents directed drivers off the interstate.
The accidents happened on a stretch of eastbound Interstate 90 running south from the Badger Interchange with Interstate 94, Dane County sheriff's Lt. Dan Bolch said.
Around 2:30 p.m., cars began braking when they hit a wall of fog near Interstate 90's intersection with U.S. Highway 12/18, Wisconsin State Patrol Lt. Laurie Steeber said. A semi-truck came up behind them and began plowing into vehicles, she said. One person was killed.
A similar pileup happened three miles away when another group of vehicles on the interstate also began braking in fog, Steeber said. A second person was killed in that pileup.

Yep, that's right. I left here at 2:30, about when this all started to happen. Had I gone the other way, I would have been in the backup, which didn't really get clear until 11:30 pm. Instead, I just had a tense trip and we both arrived home safely at a good time.
Did I hear any little voice telling me to go the Oshkosh route? Nope. But I still believe that I was guided in which way to go and protected as I went that way. Isn't that the way we are sometimes? We complain about what happens, when it is really a blessing in disguise. So, no whining here today--despite that darn fog!