Despite the storm forecast, we made the decision to drive from Ohio to Massachusetts today, as we had originally planned.

It wasn’t a decision we made lightly. Here are some of the factors we considered:

*The storm: Using a couple of weather sites we checked the forecast for several points along our route at different times of day. We also noted the predicted intensity at given points.

*Plan B: Knowing our route, we knew that there were several places we could stay the night should the storm be worse than we had thought. At any point we could scrap the mission and start again later.

*Route Familiarity: We have driven this simple route (Rt 90 all the way!) many, many times before. Most recently just this past October. We’re comfortable with the route, the opportunities for stops, the average time it takes us to get between different points, and our general endurance for the trip.

*Our Kids’ road trip perseverance: By now we have a pretty good idea of how long our girls will last in the car, how often they’ll need breaks and the kinds of snacks to have along.

In the end we decided that an all day trip on Thursday would be our best bet. We left at 4:40am and, with only a few stops, drove straight through to Salem. Including our stop for dinner we were home before 8pm.

All in all, we seemed to stay at the forefront of the eastbound storm through New York and we arrived in Eastern MA just as the northward moving front came into town. Just as we had hoped. The roads weren’t nearly as bad a we had feared they would be and we kept up a decent speed for most of the trip.

Lots of experience, a little guesswork and plenty of prayer gave us a good foundation for our snowy trip. I’m not sure we would recommend it to everyone or if we’d even make the same decision next time, but it was a charmed trip today, for sure!