Ok, I have seriously no idea where in the world to begin-or how in the world I am ever going to explain how CRAZY it was....let me take you back to last Monday evening...I think it was January 31st....approximately 5pm I get a call from Vicki-unfortunately I missed her first few calls because a week day at 5 pm is often a crazy time in the Fricke home...I still have daycare kids here and they can be extra LOUD and HYPER -this includes Grant as well so ....I finally get a chance to listen to Vicki's voice message-her voice sounded excited and she definitely had an urgency to her tone so I immediately called her back.
Me- "what's up"
Vicki-"Oh My God Dana -we're going to Oprah! Can you get off work this Friday?"
Me-"are you serious? seriously, is this real this time? yeah, I can take off work but I need a confirmation first."
Vicki had called me two other times with in the past 6 months with this same kind of excitement-telling me that she is pretty sure we were going to Oprah only for her to not get a confirmation email and it end up falling through so I wasn't as excited as she was because I let myself drown in doubt. However, after she read me the confirmation email I was totally JUICED! I hadn't been that excited for something in a long time-probably since the birth of Grant and my wedding day! So we quickly made a tentative plan and booked hotel and train tickets. We had decided to just stay two nights and make a trip of it since we were going to be in Chicago anyway. Booked the hotel for Thurs and Friday night. Hotel Felix had better get ready for two really excited/semi-crazy Oprah fans! Booked train tickets -departure time Thursday morning at 6:30am and arrival (back to Springfield) Saturday night at 11:00pm. Ok so we were PUMPED!
The next morning we wake up with the news that we were in fact going to get hit with a Blizzard and not just hit but hit -hard! The Blizzard of 2011 definitely had me worried about whether or not my sis and I were going to make it to see Oprah. Oh, let me tell you...I was seriously worried sick. I was already thinking about how heartbroken I would be if the walls of snow that surrounds me and the roads were going to prevent my dreams from coming true. Thankfully I have a seriously optimistic sister to keep my spirits up. She informed me that "when there is a
will (and Oprah tickets) there's a way!" From then on I started to gain faith!
Not only did the Big Blizzard start to give me doubts but so did the situation that was arising at the Fricke residence.....Jason had thrown his back out on Tuesday and was in some serious pain and Wednesday morning didn't find him feeling much better....in addition to that -Grant wasn't acting well and ended up throwing up! Ugh, could I really leave my crippled husband and my sick kid behind? You bet your ass I could! I thought for a moment if it was all worth it but it was a very short moment -then I realized that Vicki had given me the opportunity of a lifetime. Not too many people get the opportunity to go to the Oprah show -let alone go on her last and final season! I knew then, that NOTHING was going to stop us. Until........... I saw how the road crews could not dig out our road....it was impassable and apparently even for tractors! A tractor got stuck right in front of our house 2x before bringing in the "big dogs" to clear our road out. And when I say "clear" I mean barely clear! So now we were one step closer-my road and Vicki's road were both "clear" but we had snow drifts a mile high surrounding our house...there was just no way to get to the road without walking through them and that would be impossible -I seriously found myself up to my hips in snow when I attempted to walk through some of those drifts. So, given the condition Jason's back was in, I had only one option....if I was going to get to Oprah I was going to have to DIG...and DIG....and DIG! And that's exactly what I did. I dug a small little path from our house to the road -I dug a lot of freaking snow and several times I wanted to quit because my arms were aching from throwing the snow and my back ached like a SOB...oh and it was quite cold out there too.....but I didn't let it stop me...I kept digging with visions of us at the Oprah show in my head. FINALLY I HAD DONE IT! MY PATH TO FREEDOM HAD BEEN DUG! Vicki came out to Concord in "the beast" (her SUV) and picked me up. The roads were not looking good and neither was her driveway. We got to her house and the first thing I see is Mick's truck stuck (really stuck) at the end of their lane. The second thing I see is that her lane looked a lot like my front yard did -pre- shovel time.....so we hiked....with my luggage and our supper from Wendy's ---through the thick snow from the end of her lane to her house.....it would have been extra comical if someone had been watching us. As we seriously acted as though we were hiking up Mt. Everest or something. Ahhhhh-we we made it and conquered MISSION 1 and MISSION 2.
We thought it to be wise to tackle all this in baby steps (so we wouldn't feel overwhelmed) which we ended up giving a better more bold name -instead of "baby steps" we called them our "Missions." Mission 7 =sitting in the audience at Harpo Studios on Friday.
We spent that night deciding what Vicki should pack (she likes the color black-and packed a lot of it) and laying in bed talking about how far we had come and how much further we still had to persevere to reach our goal! We found out that night that train 300 had been canceled to Chicago but we would be able to take train 306 which would leave at 8:30 instead of 6:30am! Sweet-we could sleep in...extra sweet considering we did what we always do when we sleep together-we ended up talking until waaaaay too late.
The next morning we headed out into the snowy terrain once again but this time with more energy and spirit. Vicki captured this on video -hilarious to watch because I was struggling and slipping and sliding all the way down the lane. The roads from Vicki's place to Springfield were still not in the best of conditions...more icy than anything and of course you have the crazy people speeding around you going 50 when they should probably be going more like "5." So the trip there was interesting..we almost collided with a van on the way and when we had finally reached the train station we soon realized that their parking lot had not been cleared out -we found a parking spot but it was between two parked vehicles-Vicki slid her way into the spot barely missing the car to her left....we nearly slid right into it...when we had "the beast" completely parked and we realized we had managed without incident, we both looked at each other with bugged out eyes and just laughed-our biggest belly laughs. The trip there was nerve-wrecking, treacherous, and exciting...but all totally worth it. We boarded the train knowing that we could check off another couple "missions." After the train started to pull out I knew it was REAL -that this was REALLY going to happen. I was going to Oprah!
(too be continued...)
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