Why Minnesota in the Winter?

Hello, Brian and Jen are out of town for a couple days, so Leroy and I are here to “drive kids around”. These grands are old enough and responsible enough to do almost everything by themselves, except the driving. On Monday, we heard more about the approaching Tuesday storms so we panicked, changed plans, and started a day early. We thought the freezing rain in our area was not to come until midnight which I suppose was true as we left ahead of that. However, we did not miss it totally because leaving Spring Valley, MN after a pit stop, the warning light came on in the car which told us there was poor traction. I was now driving, so I dropped the speed significantly. That light stayed on for a good long time. We finally called Brian asking him to check where we would leave this behind. If not, we were planning to look for a motel even though we had not slipped at all. It was a bit better around Rochester as they had put that liquid on the road. Finally, the light went off for a short time. This drizzle was so weird. We could barely see it until it was frozen on the windshield. The windshield wipers were unable to remove it so we had to turn on the heat full blast and we both sweat up a storm. From time to time, we would turn down the heat only to have it build up again. When we would go past a light by a ramp I would tell Leroy, “Look up at the light and see if that stuff is still coming down.” By this time the temperature was as 27 degrees F. Much too cold to be still a liquid coming down, but it was. Brian called to let us know that it should be better after Pine Island, MN which was not so terribly far. We elected to keep going. At Pine Island the temp was down to 22. Surely now it would change to snow, but it did not for another ten miles. When the warning light in the car went away, I did not put it on cruise, but stayed with manual control and at times sped more than I have in recent years. I wanted to put on some distance. Oops, that light was back on and I had to slow down for a while before going faster again. Even after we saw a sign proclaiming that it was only 25 miles to St. Paul, the light came on, the temperature was now 18 degrees F. It was still like rain coming down. The heating system was not getting the window clear enough. Just as we drove out of it, we chose a spot to pull over. Leroy got out the scrapper and cleared the window as well as the lights he said, “They were caked with ice, too.” Grateful that we made it safely. Grateful for that light coming on in the car, because frequently I could not see that much on the pavement. We did go past one car that had spun out so it was not all good. Paula