We hit Saskatoon just in time for the Friday afternoon rush hour and met Donna and Dalton in the parking lot of a Boston Pizza in the industrial end of the city. You could feel the snow coming; the wind was freezing cold, and mean. Emil was vibrating from excitement. I had time to snap a photo and watch the three of them dash into the restaurant.

By the time I got over to Cathy's I was silently cursing careless drivers and their foolish hurry. Cathy, who's accustomed to it, ferried us to the restaurant where we met Mom's cousin (and mine) Judy for supper, and a little later in the evening I went over to Judy's to wait for Emil. Before Donna and Dalton delivered him around midnight, the snowstorm had blown in and slowed everything down and I had started to wonder if they'd make it safely from the concert venue to Judy's end of the city. When their van pulled up I ran out to the street with Emil's winter coat, but he was having none of that. Though the back of his head was plastered with wet snow before we got into the porch, he insisted he was not cold. The first question he asked, after announcing that he'd enjoyed the concert and that Dalton had bought him a Brooks and Dunn T-shirt, was "Is Judy still up?" As soon as he was in his pyjamas he cornered her in the living room and regaled her with the event highlights.

The city streets were in rough shape late last night and this morning but the highway hotline informed me that the pavement most of the way home was in good condition. Word was that more snow was on the way for Saskatoon and points west, and that a nasty storm was yet to arrive. I decided to head back to the country rather than risk being snowbound for several days. Much as the company would have been pleasant, I've become a homebody in my old age. (Also, Everett has to get four more accounting lessons completed and mailed by Thursday at the latest, or he won't be eligible to write the final exam for that class at the end of April. I need to be here to wield my mighty whip.) I would take a slightly alternate route, on a flatter and straighter highway, to avoid a 39-mile section that I expected to be less than safe with its steep ditches and non-existent shoulders.

So we crunched our way to the van over icy slush around 8 o'clock. Judy had offered us breakfast but if you've ever waited for Emil to finish eating, you know that we wouldn't have gotten out the door before 9. I was anxious to beat the forecast bad weather, so instead we picked up bacon and egg burgers at an A&W drive-thru on our way to the highway.

Very few drivers had the good sense to slow down on the slippery roads, so it was a relief when we got about 15 minutes east of the city and the ice and snow layering the pavement disappeared, leaving the Yellowhead Highway dry and clear.